Resident Evil: My Version
by SephCurrentDaughterofPoseidon
Summary: What would have happened if Matt hadn't have been scratched on the train and would have accompanied Alice on her adventures? Read on and find out! Starts in Apocalypse, and continues on after that.
1. Chapter 1

_(Changes: when they were in the hive the licker only knocked Matt to the ground, he didn't scratch him.)_

MATT:

Matthew Addison's head was killing him. He very vaguely remembered getting out of the hive with Alice. She'd turned into nervous wreck (completely understandable), and he'd been attempting to comfort her when the room turned a bright white. People in radiation suits walked in and came directly towards him and Alice.

"Hey," he'd said, his arm around a sobbing Alice. "What the hell have you guys done?"

They gave no answer as they surrounded the two of them, Matt gingerly let go of Alice, about to get up and defend the both of them from the people in the biohazard suits, who were apparently not friendly, when he felt something incredibly hard hit the back of his head.

And that was when he'd woken up with the headache. He allowed himself to open his eyes up just a millimeter. Cursing under his breath, he immediately shut them again, the bright light made the pounding in his head a thousand times worse.

Shaking himself out of his stupor, he made himself focus. He had to get up, Alice could be in trouble. With that thought as an incentive, he opened his eyes again. The pain was still sharp, the pounding was like someone was hitting his head with a baseball bat in sync with his heartbeat, but he was able to push the pain to the side and take in his surroundings.

He was all alone in a hospital room, still dressed and one tube was in his arm checking his heartbeat on a monitor. Instinctively, he ripped it out and got to his feet. Despite being in a hospital room, he was still dressed, which he knew wasn't proper protocol. Wearily, he got to his feet, still looking around. For a hospital it was so quiet, it immediately put him on guard. Next to the hospital bed, there was a tray with a lone scalpel laying on it, not really wanting to know what the goons from Umbrella had in mind to do with it, he picked it up and inched toward the door. When he got close enough, he saw that it was still partly opened.

Everything seemed to point to the fact that the people dumped him here, jammed a IV in him, and left in a hurry before they had time to undress him or perform any number of operations that they had planned. With that wonderful thought in mind, he wearily he inched the door open, gripping the surgical tool with excessive force in case he needed to use it. Nothing like memories of fighting the undead to keep you focused!

Outside of the room, it was empty and quiet. Taking one last glance around, he walked out of the room. He allowed all of his senses to strain to their maximum, trying to pick up any sign of movement or life, but he found none. 'Alice,' he thought to himself, 'I need to find Alice.'

Trying not to make any noise with his bare feet on the cool tile of the hospital floor, he walked forward, looking for his friend. It didn't take long to find her, he noticed that all of the the doors were opened, every single one of them that he passed... that was until he reached the end of the hallway, this one was closed shut, a security code lock activated on it.

He was contemplating how to open the door to check and see of Alice was there, when the door opened on its own... or that's what it seemed like until he saw who was behind the door, he didn't have much time to look before he was knocked into the wall on the opposite side of the hallway by a tremendous punch that completely knocked the breath out of him. He didn't have time to get it back either, he felt a hand around his throat and one on the side of his head, even with his eyes closed, he knew he was about to get his neck snapped. He tensed up waiting for death to find him, but it never happened.

Instead, he heard a questioning voice say, "Matt?"

He smiled, relieved that she had come to her senses before she'd killed him. "Yeah," he opened his eyes and saw a pair of icy blue ones staring back into his. "Hey Alice."

Immediately, she let go of him. "I am so sorry!" she apologized. "I guess it was an automatic reaction."

"Its fine," Matt assured her. "Look, we need to get out of here... I don't know about you, but I have no idea how to get out of this hospital."

"I do," was Alice's curt reply. She stepped away from him and started to walk down the hallway. That was when he realized what exactly she was wearing.

Looking anywhere but at her, like the gentleman he was, he spotted a door labeled 'supply closet' a few feet away from him, and like every other door, this one was opened. He walked over to it, he noticed that Alice stopped, and was looking at him questioningly, but for the moment, he ignored the look and looked inside of the small room. Sure enough, there were lab coats hanging up on the wall by a small hook. He grabbed one of them and walked out of the room. Draping it over her shoulders, he murmured, "Here, you might want this."

"Thanks," she said quietly as they came up to wall made out of glass, showcasing the ruins of Racoon City.

"What the hell happened here?" Matt murmured.

"They reopened the Hive," Alice explained, opening the glass door and they both stepped outside. Matt looked up and down the streets, staring in utter disbelief at the state of everything. Cars were abandoned in the middle of the road, some were fine, some were crashed, and others were burning. Glass from the windshields, along with the windows of the shops and other buildings, littered the street.

"I know they're didn't care about human rights and all, but this..."

Alice took a step forward, but Matt put a placating hand on her shoulder. "Alice," he cautioned, "we don't know what's out there."

Nodding, she said, "I know, but we can't stay here, and people are going to need our help."

"Alright," Matt said, not really having an argument for her reasoning. "Watch out for the glass."

Matt felt like a bit of a hypocrite for telling Alice to watch out for the glass. He didn't know how many cuts he had on the bottom of his feet when they made it to a clothing store at the corner of the street, three or so doors from the hospital, and every single one of them stung like hell.

Both of them walked into the store quietly. It was in ruins, the clothing racks were strewn everywhere, the windows were shattered and MORE glass was everywhere... Matt seriously needed some shoes, but that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the undead that were shuffling around.

Both of them froze when they saw the zombies. He tensed, ready to turn around and make a run for it, when Alice grabbed his wrist. He quickly looked down at her questioningly. She was gesturing to the undead, they were still shuffling around, not even paying them one ounce of attention. 'What the hell?' was the only coherent thought that his mind could come up with. The monsters should have come after them, no doubt they could sense them, hell, Matt was pretty sure his heart was beating loud enough for them to be able to HEAR him just fine.

Alice took a step forward, and Matt extended his arm, stoping her from going any further. "What are you doing?" he demanded in a barely audible tone.

"We need supplies," Alice insisted just as quietly. Matt was surprised that he was able to hear her so clearly, as if she was speaking in normal tones with him, but he didn't think too hard on it, he was a bit distracted at the moment.

"I understand that," he said, "but WHY would we go into a store with the undead?"

"The aren't attacking," Alice answered. "We're well within range for that, and you were bleeding a second ago, they would have smelt your blood."

He looked at her for a second, then scrutinized the zombies for another, before saying, "Alright, Alice, I trust you."

Together, they walked into the store, tensing up when they came within three feet of a zombie, but it kept shuffling about as if they weren't there. "Okay," he said quietly, "you were right, but let's stay together just in case something goes wrong."

She nodded before grabbing a tanktop from a nearby rack and a pair of jeans, and some sneakers from the floor. "Alright," Alice said. "You need some shoes, I'm going to change into this, you can go and grab some."

He nodded and turned around, looking one more time at Alice, he said, "Please be careful."

She rolled her eyes and nodded. He didn't miss the small smile on her face as she walked out. Matt walked forward, carefully dodging two undead women shuffling around what he realized were the butchered remains of a middle aged man. Resisting the urge to vomit, he walked past. Shoes were strewn everywhere, some of them were in the boxes, and some were out. It took him a while, but eventually he managed to grab a pair of combat boots in his size. He slipped the scalpel into his pocket and pulled the shoes on. 'Alright, Alice,' he thought, 'let's go!'

As if she'd read his mind, she stepped from around a corner and said, "How're your feet?" She had gauze in her hand, apparently ready to bandage him up.

Matt frowned. His feet had been bleeding, cut up and sore while he'd been on the streets, now he didn't even feel any pain. "They're fine, actually," he informed her, letting surprise color his voice.

She looked at him with a raised eyebrow and most likely thought that he was trying to be a macho man. His thoughts were confirmed when she said, "Matt, this is no time for you to try to be tough, I need you to be in good condition."

"Alice," he assured her, "I'm fine."

"Okay," she said, "but the next time we stop, I'm checking your feet out."

Both of them walked out if the building, and a small amount of weight was lifted off Matt's shoulders, he took a deep breath and exhaled audibly in relief. "Where exactly are we going?"

"Getting out of this city would be a-"

Alice was cut off by the unmistakable sound of gunfire. "Better yet," she said, "there's a gun shop further up."

**I now have this unhealthy obsession with Resident Evil... understandable, right? But honestly, I watched the first movie for the first time since like 2002 a few days ago and I remembered just how amazing it was... and how pissed I was about Matt being infected and turned into Nemesis, so this fic is here to help me! I sadly own nothing, this is my first Resident Evil Fic, and I sincerely hope I haven't butchered it yet**.


	2. Chapter 2

JILL:

Jill was having a piss poor day. She'd been suspended because she reported that zombies had been in the forest and S.T.A.R.S thought that she was insane. Oh boy did she wish that was the case! It wasn't though, and she was proven right when she saw a woman in her mid to late twenties walk up to a random man in a business suit and bite him right on the neck.

If that wasn't bad enough (and it was), one of the only people that respected her and treated her as an equal in this damned town was bit in the leg by a zombie when he was trying to help a teenaged girl. So where did sue find herself at the moment? Helping her friend, Peyton walk down the street, trying to avoid the zombies that were slowly walking toward them, all the while, having Terri Morales, the annoying, whiny, and totally incompetent news woman following them around like a lost puppy. Piss. Poor. Day.

Peyton's breathing was labored, and she could feel the heat emitting from his body. "Alright, Peyton," Jill said, "you've gotta sit down."

"If I sit down, Jill," Peyton panted, "I'm gonna end up being bit by one of those soulless creatures again."

"And of you don't," she countered, "you'll collapse from exhaustion."

"Can't argue with that logic," Terri said.

Jill, restraining from telling her to shut up and, shoving her into one of the walking corpses, said, "Fine, but where..."

She trailed off as she looked up at the church looming over them from the side. "I have an idea..."

L.J.:

L.J. was not a happy man. After that crazy woman with the blue tube top shot his hand cuffs off, he ran out of the police station, not bothering to listen to the dumbass cops who were fighting off an army of the undead without realizing it. They really should have listened to that woman... He knew he was, she may have once been a cop, and he may have hated cops, but her advise was solid, he was getting the hell out if town.

He'd already been to his house and grabbed everything that he found important to him: his weapons, his lucky ring and his special CD. The sun was going down, and from what he remembered from those horror films that he watched when he was a kid, the zombies always came out at night.

He found himself in a beautiful red Camaro, riding down the streets, running over zombies every chance he got.

ALICE:

The gun shop had been ransacked, there wasn't so much as a pistol left, and Alice sure didn't see a bullet in sight either.

"Any suggestions?" Matt asked it was obvious that he was nervous and was trying desperately to cover it up.

"Well," Alice answered, still observing the way he was randomly running his fingers through his spiky brown hair and still looking out of the windows, "we should probably keep moving, we already know that the dumbest thing that we could do is stay in the same spot for too long."

Nodding in agreement, he gestured to the door, "the quickest way out of this hellhole is…?"

"Personally, I would suggest…."Alice trailed off as the sound of running footsteps and the unmistakable sound of panicked screams came by the shop. Without thinking, she ran outside and was automatically followed by Matt.

"Oh God," Matt said as the people started getting closer. The frantic looks on their faces made her uneasy.

"How many zombies can there be?" Alice demanded.

"A lot," Matt informed her. "We don't need to-"

He was cut off when a particularly large man rammed into him as he was rushing in the opposite direction. He fell to the ground, hard and Alice was about to lean down and help him up when the crowd seemed to get infinitely thicker and the people seemed to carry her away with her. "MATT!" she screamed.

She was too far away, but she swore she heard him groan. But anyone could hear the shout that came up, "Go ahead, Alice, I'll meet up with you later!"

Not really seeing where she had a choice but to listen, she stopped fighting the crowd and started to follow them, running in their general direction. She'd only been away from Matt for about five minutes when she saw something shiny catch her eye, it was a beautiful Harley. Managing to push herself away from the damned crowd that'd separated her from her only friend that had any idea what was going on, she walked over to it, figuring that she'd be able to find him better on wheels than on foot. She was about to get on the bike, see if it would work and ride back, looking for her friend, when she saw something that made their bleak situation seem just a bit more hopeful.

Matt:

He was feeling a bit perturbed about the wounds that he'd received on his hands, as he walked down the street, cursing himself for his bad luck. The sun was going down and he was starting to wonder about the location of Alice, they'd separated. He hoped she was okay, but there was nothing he could do about it, and he had confidence in her; she could handle her own just fine. He was in a ghostly part of the town, there was nothing there, and he saw no zombies at all, which made everything so much worse. He was constantly looking around, berating himself for leaving the crowd; he was going to die of a freaking panic attack before he found Alice again. He may be safer from the undead, but it sure didn't feel like it.

He was contemplating turning back around and going back when he heard someone shout, "G. T. A. motherfuckers! Ten points! Kiss my entire ass!" Music was blaring so loud that he could make out the words and it was as if the source was right next to him.

Figuring that someone was obviously alive, he walked forward, hoping to find some help somewhere. He couldn't see anything anyway, he was on a hill and whatever was on top of it was a mystery to him. The person was obviously in a car (he could feel the vibrations in the ground), and he didn't want him to drive off, so he started running up the hill a lot faster than he thought he should have been able to. Upon reaching the top he saw that the man was doing a a victory circle in the middle of the road. 'Great,' he thought dryly, 'one of the only other people alive in this Godforsaken town is a dumbass.'

He shrugged internally, he was a dumbass with a car, he couldn't be all that stupid. He was about to signal him to stop when he yelled, "Damn girl, you still got it!" And unceremoniously crashed into another car... apparently he was that stupid.

Matt heard a stream of curses flying from the man's mouth as he got out of the now totaled car. He was an African American man, with the world's funniest looking clothes that Matt had ever seen, if the circumstances would have been less morbid, he probably would have laughed. Resisting the urge to say, 'nice going dumbass!' he took a step toward him, only to have a golden pistol drawn and pointed straight at his chest. "Easy man!" Matt said. "I'm still alive!"

Hesitantly, he lowered his gun. Matt got a tingling sensation on the back of his neck, he spun around and came face to face with a middle aged woman who was missing half of her left cheek. Automatically his hands went forward and snapped her neck effortlessly, it happened all in less than a half a second.

"Holy shit, man!" the funnily dressed man said. "Where the hell did you learn to do that?"

Matt blinked, frowning slightly. "I..."

He trailed off, looking down at his hands. "You know what?" the man said. "It don't matter, 'cause you cool! The name is Lloyd Jefferson Wayne, but you can call me L.J."

"Matt," he said, still in slight awe.

"Well, Matt, we should probably get out of here."

That was probably the smartest thing he'd said all day, and it was most likely the smartest thing that he was going to say. "Alright then," Matt said, "let's get the hell out of here."

They started down the street, and saw that a load of zombies were standing by a large building. "God," L.J. said, "I always said that I wanted to see the police department go to hell, but I don't know about that now..."

"L.J.," Matt said, "we need to get inside that building."

"Come again," L.J. said looking at him sharply, "we need to do what?"

"Go in," Matt repeated patiently. "They're bound to have weapons. We're going to need something to help us get out of this hellhole."

"If we go in there, we'll get eaten alive," he informed Matt, "I don't know about you, but being their dinner isn't high on my Things-I-Want-to-do list."

"We aren't going to die," Matt assured him, power and adrenaline rushing through his veins.

"Damn," L.J. said thoughtfully, "you crazy as hell!"

"If we don't go in there, we'll be eaten alive by the damn zombies in the streets."

L.J. opened his mouth for another argument, but Matt gave him a harsh look. Sighing in resignation, L.J. said, "If I get turned into a zombie, I'm comin' after your ass first."

JILL:

The church was huge. That was the only thought that was running through Jill's mind as she sat on a pew beside Payton and took a deep drag off a cigarette.

Her day had been messed up from the start, she'd been chased around by walking corpses, been shot at by goons from Umbrella, and she was stuck in a city with the same walking dead that she'd been running from. All of that'd happened to her in one day, and she had no idea which event pissed her off the most: the one in which Terri Morals tried to get an interview from her for her 'Emmy' or when that dumbass redhead with the scottish accent that'd been in the church declared that it was HIS church and he wasn't sharing with ANYONE like a damn child in preschool arguing over a toy firetruck!

She'd been distracted with thoughts of Chris Redfield. He was her partner in S.T.A.R.S. and he'd been suspended and found to be just as insane as she'd been. He'd been lucky and skipped town earlier. He'd offered her a ride with him, but she turned him down, the very thought of rubbing the fact that they'd been right in the police departments face had been too much of a good opportunity to miss. 'And look where it's gotten you at!' her mind scolded. 'You could have lived without it!' The only thing that she'd been glad of was that she'd been there for Payton.

She looked around the church, they were stuck there, the zombies would be all around the building, making their escape impossible. Wanting to scream at the unfairness of it all, she took another drag off her cigarette.

CRASH!

"What the hell was that?" The red head demanded.

"I don't know," Jill said, putting her cigarette out before getting up walking toward the source of the noise, "but I'm going to find out."

Drawing her gun, she inched forward, looking all around, not really wanting be surprised by whatever made that noise.

She walked through a small door and down a long, eerie hallway, which ended in a small dark room, lit by a small fire going in a fireplace. A large chair was occupied in the middle of the room, the woman who was sitting in the chair was writhing around, moaning and groaning.

An older man who looked to be the priest came in from the shadows. "Go!"

"What's wrong with her?" Jill demanded.

"It's my sister," the priest said. "She's not well."

Jill inched forward cautiously. "Ma'am," she said in what she hopped was a soothing voice. "Ma'am..." she trailed off when she caught sight of her: milky eyes, rotting skin, sunken in facial features.

'She's turned,' Jill thought, that much was obvious, 'so why isn't she...' Her thoughts trailed off as she noticed the restraints on her wrist.

Automatically Jill raised her gun and pointed it at the zombie's head. "NO!" the man said, pushing her arm out of the way, making her lose her balance. She took an involuntary step sideways and almost tripped and broke her ankle over a mutilated arm.

A cold realization swept through Jill's entire being, filling her to the brim with absolute disgust. "You've been feeding her? You're sick!"

Jill took another aim for the woman's head and the priest knocked her out of the way. The woman managed to get one of her arms out of the bonds and the priest stepped too close to his sister. She gripped his arm, pulled him down and bit a chunk right out of his neck, causing him to scream hysterically. Without the slightest bit of hesitation or guilt she shot the woman and the priest in the heads. Frowning in utter disgust, she walked out of the room and back to the others.

Since this chapter really copied the movie and I didn't like it all that much, I'm putting it up now, but you can expect the next chapter up on time tomorrow... hopefully. I own nothing NOTHING!


	3. Chapter 3

(Fair warning: this IS my version, so its going to be very AU)

L.J.:

L.J. had been in the police station so many times that he knew the inside and the outside like the back of his hand. So finding Matt and him a zombie free (well mostly) entrance was so easy he could have completed the task in his sleep. The fact that he'd done something constructive in their plan filled him with a burning amount of pride and happiness, but it faded rapidly as he saw the dark and ominous hallway that came after the doorway that he'd found.

"Are we seriously goin in there?" L.J. demanded.

"Yeah," Matt said, "we are. Besides its clear."

"How do you know?" L.J. exclaimed. "I can't see two damn inches into the hall!"

"I don't know," Matt admitted, "but I'm definitely sure that its clear." Without waiting for another argument to pop from L.J.'s mouth, he walked inside. L.J., figuring that he was safer with Matt no matter how psychotic he seemed, followed behind him.

JILL:

Jill walked back out into the church and saw that the others were looking at her curiously, Morales had her video camera on, trained on Jill who tried her best to completely ignore it. "What was that?" Peyton questioned.

Jill just shook her head, not really wanting to talk about what she'd just seen.

She'd just taken another seat on a pew when something on the roof moved. As she looked up she saw that Peyton was automatically following whatever happened to move with his flashlight. Jill felt her blood turn cold when the flashlight landed on a set of huge claw marks on the ceiling.

"What the hell is that?" Peyton demanded.

Jilll was about to say "Good question," when she saw some more movement to the left of the claw marks, so instead, she pointed in that general direction and said, "There!"

Peyton moved the flashlight to mirror the way she was pointing. Another set of claw marks were engraved into the stone eerily. 'What the hell can do that to stone?' Jill couldn't help but wonder as Morales shouted, "There!"

Peyton pointed the flashlight on the far side of the church and Jill thought that she was going insane, because what she saw just couldn't be real, it just couldn't be. It was a vaguely human-like creature, its body covered in bloody red muscle and white bone, but it seemed hard as if it were rhino's skin. Its spine was curved so it could walk on all fours, its and its feet ended in great claws which explained the marks, its mouth was full of sharp-looking teeth and the tounge was huge, twenty feet long easy. She drew her weapon, and brought it up to aim at the creature, she was going to try to aim for in between the eyes when with a sinking feeling, she realized that this thing had no eyes, instead its brain was exposed.

Before she could get a good enough aim to shoot at the thing, it shot out of the light and to only God knows where. "That's it," the red head said, "I'm getting out of here!"

"Wait!" Jill said. The man didn't listen, he just kept on going.

Sighing in utter annoyance, Jill said, "I'll get him!" She took off in the direction that the idiotic lunatic had went. She came across a wooden screen and heard a noise, he'd probably went in there and cowered under one of the smaller pews. She stepped inside and heard a dripping noise. Looking all around she saw that there was a water fountain looking thing that'd been knocked over and water was all over the floor... holy water she supposed, the place had probably been for baptisms. That didn't matter at the moment. Finding that idiot did.

The basin full of water couldn't have been the source of the dripping noise, so she took another look around and saw that one of the pews had been smashed to pieces. Carefully walking over, she aimed her gun at the wreckage, prepared to fire at any signs of sudden movements. That'd been where the dripping noise had come from. Blood was all over the pew, dripping down to the wooden floor. Her heart sped up as she continued to look through the wooden disaster until sue found something that made her utterly sick straight to her stomach.

The idiotic man's remains were there. Not that she could recognize him. He was torn to considerably small pieces. It took all of Jill's will power not to turn around and run back into the other room. She saw the man's gun in a hand that'd been severed at the wrist. With creatures that had the ability to run around and do that to people, they needed all of the firepower that they could get. Holding her breath and imagining that she was just taking the gun from a live person who just didn't want to give it back, she leaned down and grabbed it. Without a second glance back (she didn't know if she could even stomach that), she ran out of the room, and back into the church.

She was so distracted. A thousand questions (some about her own sanity) were rushing through her mind, and she was so distracted that she didn't realize that the church was empty until she made it to the front of the church. She was about to call out Peyton's name when someone clamped a hand around her mouth and an arm around her waist and pulled her into a niche behind the alter.

MATT:

He didn't know how he knew which paths to take, but it was like a radar in his head, he could sense which doors had the undead shuffling behind them. L.J. hadn't questioned him since they got inside and no zombies had been there. They'd just passed through a door into a locker room. A man was laying on the floor, his breathing labored, and another younger man was leaning over him. "Save the survivors," was the last thing that the man said before the younger man noticed the two of them.

He immediately jumped to his feet and pointed a disturbingly large gun right at Matt's chest... he was really getting tired of that happening. "We aren't infected," Matt said, hopefully sounding soothing.

The man lowered his weapon and looked at him, Matt saw that he wanted to be told that someone actually knew what was going on, and he was hoping that he knew what he was doing. "I'm Matt, this is L.J.."

"Leon," the man said after a moment of silence. Leon had piercing blue eyes and brown hair that went down to his chin in the front, he was wearing a police officer's uniform, but he seemed really young, twenty one or so, he couldn't have been very experienced.

"We just lookin' for some weapons," L.J. said, "then we're gettin' the hell out of here."

"You're welcome to join us," Matt offered. A look of relief swept over the younger man's features.

"That sounds like a good idea," Leon admitted. "But there's someone else, I found a girl riding through the town, she looked to be eighteen and she said her name was Claire."

"Alright," Matt said. "Is she in the station?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "We got split up before we could make it here, I told her to go directly to the station as fast as possible. She seemed like a fighter, so she might be."

Matt was silent for a moment, weighing the options, but even as he did, he already knew there was only one answer. "Alright, you two stay here... how is the other one fairing?"

Leon looked down at the man before leaning over and checking his pulse. He got up with a solemn expression. "He's gone." Leon suddenly hauled off and punched the locker closest to him, the loud sound rocketing off the walls. "Damn it! Cant even do my friggin job right!"

Matt stood still for a moment, before attempting to calm the younger man down. "Hey, I'm sure you did all you could."

Leon was shaking slightly, his eyes closed. "No," he said, shaking his head, "my first day on the job. This is what I run into and I couldn't save anyone."

"Leon," Matt said sharply, "you need to focus, you're of no help when you're like this. Clear your mind. You two stay here, I'm going to go and look for Claire."

"I'm going with you," Leon said, his voice had a hard edge to it, he was angry. Anger always equaled recklessness.

"No," Matt said. "You stay here, Claire could always stumble into the room after I'm gone."

"Then let him stay," Leon snapped, pointing at L.J..

"You're angry," Matt said, "if you come with me, all you're going to do is get yourself killed, you're no good to Claire dead."

Leon was silent, his blue eyes shone with confusion, pain, and doubt.

"I'm not going to die," Matt assured him. "L.J. look after him, make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."

He nodded solemnly and Matt walked out the door on the other side of the room.

"Wait," Leon said. Matt turned around wearily, thinking that he was going to have to fend off more insists to accompany him, instead, Leon threw him a magnum. "You might want this."

Matt smiled what he hoped was a confident smile. "Yeah, I probably do." He turned around and walked out of the doorway, closing it and not looking back.

ALICE:

Riding the Harley contracted a few stares, but Alice couldn't care less, from the way these people were acting, they'd be dead before dawn. Alice could try to save as many people as she wanted, but she couldn't wage war against stupidity.

That was when she sensed it: three entities. 'Lickers,' she thought. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew. She turned her attention to a church where she was sure that they'd come from. She smiled slightly as she saw that a car was turned upside down on top of the hood of an eighteen wheeler. God, sometimes even she started to question her good fortune, but at the moment she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It was the perfect ramp and it would make going through the stain glass windows a piece of cake. Since she couldn't very well go through the front door, her unnaturally sharpened vision could make out the zombies trying to break it down. 'Alright,' she thought, 'let's get this show on the road.'

Alice started driving, building up speed, and had just enough when she got to the car, as soon as she got to the top of the roof of the truck, she went soaring into the air, a feeling of weightlessness settled over her, right until she crashed into the window. She felt the glass cut into her, but ignored the pain, it would heal quickly just like her feet when her and Matt were walking through the streets. Umbrella had done something to her and those bastards were going to pay. From the view up in the air as she was coming right down on a licker, she saw that she had incredible timing.

It was going after a woman with short black hair, blue eyes, with a blue tube top and shorts on, and there was no way she was going to be able to get out of the way in time. She jumped off the bike, doing a back flip right before it made contact with the beast, and she landed gracefully on the ground. She uttered one word, "Move."

The three of them ran forward an Asian woman in the lead, Alice vaguely recognized her, something to do with the news, but she really didn't think on it, a bit too busy trying to deal with the lickers.

She stood on her feet and revved the Harley until it was way past the red line, put it into gear, and let it let it shoot out from between her legs and right onto another beast, both the creature and the bike went inti the air. She pulled out the colt that she'd found on the bike and fired a single shot at the bike's gas tank. It exploded, killing the creature and destroying part of the alter with it. A third creature fell from the ceiling, Alice whipped out her uzis and shot dozens of rounds into the creature, killing it before it hit the floor. She sensed the licker that she'd hit with her Harley upon entry was coming at her from behind, without even turning around, she kicked the pew behind her, it went sliding across the church. Turning around she unholstered the shotgun from her back and shot the licker right in the chest as it lept through the air, it was knocked backward into the wall, reholstering her shotgun, she drew her colt, and shot at the chains that were holding the cross up on the alter, the licker got up to charge her again, but before it got to far the cross dropped and pinned it down. Whipping out her shotgun, she shot it in the face, killing it instantly.

The dark haired woman in the blue tubetop chose that time to speak up. "Who the fuck are you?"

**Thank you all to those that reviewed. And I thought I would say: when I was reading the books I was constantly asking my twelve year old brother about the guns that were mentioned. That I how little I know about them. I live with my grandma who hates guns so I know nothing about them... sorry. I own nothing!**

**Also I have a thing that I normally do with stories and reviews. Like the fifth review gets a sneak peek at the next chapter, and the tenth review gets a say in what happens next. If you'd like that just review!**


	4. Chapter 4

Claire:

Claire Redfield was a pretty good person, or at least that was what she liked to think. She would go out of her way to talk to the shy people, she was never cruel, and she wouldn't hesitate to take down a bully. So yeah, she wasn't all that bad, but if that was the case, then why was she stuck in a police department looking for her brother with hoards of the undead shuffling around? She wished she would have been able to answer the obviously good question.

When she stumbled in an office much to lavish to belong in a small town police department, she allowed her guard down just slightly to think about everything that'd happened to get her this far. The place was deserted, and the chair behind the fancy desk looked soft, comfortable, and downright inviting. Promising herself that she'd only sit for a few minutes and be on her way quickly afterwards, she walked over to the chair. When she sat down, she couldn't help but let out a groan of relief, her back and her feet had been killing her! She may have been young and she may have been in good physical condition, but the tension that she'd felt the whole night was starting to crumble down on her and all she wanted to do was stay where she was, she was safe and so comfortable!

'But I can't,' she thought miserably, 'Leon needs my help, he could be hurt, or worse.' With that thought spurring her on, she pushed herself out of her chair and was about to take a step toward the door, when it unceremoniously opened.

Claire, who'd been off guard, jumped and fumbled with her weapon, she recovered pretty quickly, though, and had it pointed at the face of a man with spiky brown hair and brilliant blue eyes. He was looking at her with a calm and almost exasperated expression. "Please lower the weapon."

Claire immediately did so, muttering a quick apology.

"Are you Claire?" he inquired.

"Yeah," she said, "um... how-"

"Leon told us about you. My name is Matt, I can take you to hi-" Matt was cut off by the sound of gunshots and distant yelling.

"Come on," he said, "this can't be good."

Deciding that it would be a good idea to listen to the blue eyed man (he seemed sincere), she followed him out of the room. They went down a vaguely familiar hallway, there was a large black spot right in the middle of it, the last time she'd visited Chris, he'd told her that one of the S.T.A.R.S. rookies had accidently set off a hand grenade. 'The locker room!' she thought, 'that's where were going.'

"Ah damn man!" Claire heard someone yell, "you think he'd count this as a good reason to run?"

"Probably," a wonderfully familiar voice shouted back, right before another round of echoing gunfire.

Not thinking, Claire opened the door, Leon and another man with funny clothes were standing by the door, shooting at the undead that were pouring through. "Damn," she heard Matt curse. "L.J.," he said, she was guessing she meant the man that wasn't Leon. "How'd they get in here?"

"They busted the damn door down!" L.J. replied, shooting at a rather fat cop who'd walked into the room seconds before. The zombie hit the floor completely still.

"Out the door!" Matt said.

"Can't," Leon said, "dead end."

"Then what do we do?" Claire asked, hoping she didn't sound like a helpless little kid.

Leon and Matt both smiled at her grimly. "Simple," Leon said, "target practice."

Alice:

The reporter was one whining bitch. She'd of course led them out of the back of the church and into the graveyard, away from the zombies that were trying to break down the front door of the church. But Terri Morales kept on popping pills from some small little container, and kept complaining the whole way.

The woman who'd introduced herself as Jill Valentine, said, "Alright Peyton needs to rest, we need to stop for a moment."

Peyton groaned slightly as Jill placed the rest if his body weight on a tombstone. Alice realized what was going on and grimly she said, "You're infected,

"Don't worry about me," Peyton said.

She wasn't worried about Wells at all. She pulled out her Colt and pointed it at his head. But faster than Alice believed possible, Jill had a gun pointed at her own face, and Peyton had one pointed at her as well. Morales was filming everything... of course.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Jill demanded.

"He's infected," Alice said slowly, "he will die in a few hours, and in a few minuets later he'll come hack to life and hunt down his friends and family, try to eat them, probably succeed."

"If it comes to that," Jill said her voice trying to carry an edge to it, but Alice could hear the quaver in it, "I'll take care if it myself."

Alice had a flashback to the Hive where Rain told her that she didn't want to walk around as a zombie without a soul, she made Alice promise to take care of it... she didn't though, Matt did. Slowly she lowered her weapon, "So be it," she hoped that Jill would he strong enough to do it.

Terri leaned against a tombstone, sighing in what was clearly exhaustion. Alice hoped that she wasn't that tired, they had a long night ahead. 'Oh well,' Alice thought, internally sighing, 'if she was that easily exhausted, she won't make it, one less person would make it easier to find Matt.'

Grimacing at her selfish thoughts, she turned her attention to the group in front of her. "More of those things could be coming," Morales snapped, "we need to go!"

"No," Alice answered immediately, "they hunt in packs if there were more if them we'd have seen them by now."

"So you know what they are," Morales said in a triumphant voice.

"They were infected by a virus from Umbrella, called the T-Virus." she explained, not seeing any reason for hiding the truth any longer.

"How do you know so much about Umbrella?" Jill asked sounding suspicious.

"I used to work for them before I saw the error of my ways," Alice responded.

Alice looked around and saw that the undead were just shuffling around aimlessly, they hadn't even taken a notice to them yet. That was before Morales screamed.

A hand had reached out from the grave and grabbed the weather girl's leg... the virus was seeping into the dirt. Peyton raised his gun, but Alice said, "Save your ammo," before walking up to it and kicking its chin, and breaking its neck. "They are attracted by noise, firing your weapon would only attract more of them."

"Oh yeah," Jill demanded, "what about those," she pointed behind Alice to the front gates of the graveyard by the church. And dozens were rising from the graves.

"Damn," Alice muttered, before moving into action. She ran forward and snapped the neck of a corpse effortlessly, before placing a spin kick on one that shattered its spine, broke the leg of another one and it fell on a tombstone, cracking its neck. She'd managed to do that in the time it took Jill to throw one single punch.

There was only one left, Alice walked up to it, and smashed its head into a grave, right against the words REST IN PEACE. She looked up and saw that Jill was looking at her with a furious and slightly curious expression. Alice looked back questioningly. "I've had enough irony for one day," Jill explained, gesturing to the zombie's head on the RIP sign.

Alice smiled faintly, before saying, "We should probably get outta here before more of them start shuffling in."

She'd never seen such a blissfully happy look on Morales face.

CARLOS:

He'd had the worst luck in the world. He'd been called off of a vacation to do a mission that'd ended up killing one and his team, he'd tried to save a civilian, she'd jumped off a roof, killing herself. His team went down into the streets, and he'd lost all of them but two, one man bit, and was probably going to turn, he was dragging said wounded man with the only other okay man that was probably in this whole forsaken city, Nicholai.

He heard air swishing around, an all too familiar noise, he looked at his redheaded, Russian friend, Nicholai.

"Helicopter," Nicholai said, his Russian accent almost completely breaking in his obvious relief.

"It looks like its going to the hospital," Carlos said, "hang in there, Loginov, we've almost made it."

Loginov smiled grimly, "Don't worry, boss, I'm not going anywhere."

"That's the spirit," Nicholai said bracingly, but Carlos could hear the worry laced through it.

"Come on," Loginov said through ragged gasps, "lets get outta this hellhole, and I might actually have a drink with you guys."

"Let's go then," Nicholai said, "I know a few good bars."

Smiling at the thought of leaving, Carlos started walking even faster, the hospital quickly getting closer and closer. "I'm ready to go home."

**Hello! I've really been busy with just about everything that a person in high-school could be busy with lately and that is why I have neglected to answer some of the statements/ questions in the reviews. I'll rectify that now:**

** .RUNNING: I was too! He was my favorite character in the first movie, he and Alice seemed to have some kind of connection, so I was shocked to say the least when he ended up being turned.**

**big fan: I do too, trust me, whenever I see clones, I think he might be there. After all they're bound to still have blood from him with all of the experiments that were performed on him. And yes, he is infected, but unlike Alice, he was only given, sharp senses, amazing reflexes, and some more strength. And was this soon enough?**

**resifan009: thank you!**

**Lulubell6: thanks! And I did bring him in! I love him too!**

**Yidn23: I know what you mean, the only other person that they haven't cloned was Spense, and they can keep him as far as I'm concerned.**

**Bunnix8 Va. Boodlez: thank you sooo much, I eagerly await your help!**

**Now that that is over, I have one other thing: I kinda want a beta. My normal beta (who is amazing btw) isn't into horror, so she's never read/ watched anything to do with RE, so if you wanna beta for me, please review and tell. I own nothing, and my apologies for the length of the AN.**


	5. Chapter 5

JILL:

As they were walking down a deserted street, they walked in the middle, Alice had advised it, by informing them that anything could be lurking in the shadows of one of the buildings. Everything seemed to be going smoothly despite the fact that Alice kept looking around as if expecting to run into something or someone one, it made Jill a bit tense, but hopefully it was just her nerves as well. The street was starting to curve and a long line of payphones were starting to line the road.

When they came across the first payphone, it started to ring, sending a crisp, clean, shrill sound into the silent air. Everyone paused and looking at the phone, Alice was the first one to come out of her shock a mere half a second later. "We need to keep moving," she urged, "the noise will end up attracting them."

So they kept walking, as soon as they got ten feet away from the ringing phone, it was silent. Thinking that the person on the other end just hung up, Jill walked forward, intent on her goal once again. Not two steps later the next phone started to ring. Not saying a word, Alice simply sped up her pace as she walked, getting away from the next phone faster, once they were ten feet away from it, it cut off again, only for the third phone to start up.

"Should we answer it?" Morales questioned.

Sighing in defeat and exasperation, Alice marched over to the phone booth and picked up the line. "What?" she snapped into the mouth piece. The person at the other end started speaking, and Alice's eyes started to widen and light up at the same time. "Keep talking," she encouraged.

~Ten minutes later~

They found themselves in a bus and Jill was listening to Alice explain that they had a definite way out of the hellhole that was now Raccoon City. All they had to do was find a scientist's child named Angela Ashford. And they only had until sunrise before the city would be sanitized.

"What are we waiting for?" Peyton panted, trying his hardest to sound upbeat.

LEON:

Telling Claire that their only way out was "target practice" was pretty well like saying "we're so screwed, and there is a good possibility that we're going to die," in the nicest way possible, so when they managed to make it out onto the now dark streets of Raccoon City unscathed, Leon Kennedy was shocked to say the least.

"Come on," Matt said, "I have a friend that can get us out of the city."

Leon looked at Matt then around at the carnage that was Raccoon. It was very unlikely that anyone was still alive other than them.

"Matt," Leon said carefully, "this friend of yours, what makes you think they're alive?"

"She's a fighter. She's already been through this hell, if anyone else is around, it's her."

Leon was quiet for a moment. Matt clearly knew what was going on more than he did, "Okay," he said, "where would she..." Leon trailed off as a shrill ring came from the other side of the street where a payphone was sitting.

"What the hell?" L.J. asked.

"Think we should answer?" Claire questioned.

Matt was already in motion. "Might as well," he called over his shoulder, "those things are attracted by noise."

Leon started to follow him, figuring that he'd be better off looking out for zombies instead of standing around like an idiot. Matt got to the phone and answered it. "Hello?" he said quietly.

Leon decided to let him do the talking. He looked up and down the street, hoping to god that the creatures hadn't decided to follow them. Claire and L.J. had walked over, both of them were looking over their shoulders uneasily. Leon was starting to feel edgy about staying in one spot for so long when Matt hung up the phone.

"Well," Claire prompted.

"We have a way out," he said, before turning to L.J. "you're the only one who actually lived here, right?"

L.J. nodded.

"Good, I need to know where the school that is on Hudson and Robertson is."

"Damn, that's actually pretty close," L.J. mused, "three streets away... and we can cut across a few yards and be there in fifteen minutes. Why? And what's the way out?"

"I'll explain on the way, you lead, L.J.."

CARLOS:

Dragging Loginov through the hospital, which was lurking with zombies, hadn't been fun at all, neither was realizing that the helicopter hadn't been for them to get out, just for dropping a huge case off, and that said huge case was empty.

Nicholai said some choice curse words in Russian, at the sight of the empty box. Carlos set down a now unconscious Loginov, as Nicholai said, "A lot of damn good this box does us. What the hell are we supposed to do with this? Hide in it for safety? We need a damn way out!"

Carlos was about to say something encouraging to his Russian comrade, when he felt excruciating pain to his left shoulder. Yuri Loginov... well his corpse, had bit him there. "Shit!" Carlos said before punching him in the face, which caused him to stop biting him, before grabbing his head and twisting it. His neck snapped easily and Carlos let him fall to the ground.

Nicholai looked at his fellow Russian sadly, "Guess I won't be getting him drunk."

"We need to go," Carlos said urgently, silently cursing at the bite on his shoulder.

"Pity..." Nicholai said.

"Nicholai," Carlos snapped, "focus. I need some first aid, we're at a hospital, they probably have better ones than our field pack does."

"Right," Nicholai said, shaking his head, "let's see what we can find."

It didn't take too long to get to the emergency ward. Sadly most of the supplies were either long gone or seriously contaminated. What they could find, Nicholai used, but nothing seemed to be working, his wounds seemed to be bleeding more furiously than ever.

It won't stop bleeding," Carlos said, trying to bring Nicholai out of his silence.

"How could they have missed us?" Nicholai said as if he didn't hear him.

"What do you mean?" Carlos questioned.

"The chopper," Nicholai explained, "how did the people not see us?"

Carlos sighed, he didn't want to be the one to explain this to him, but he didn't have much of a choice. "They saw us," he said sighing.

His Russian comrade looked at him questioningly, "What?"

"Were assets, Nicholai," he said putting his hand on the other man's shoulder. "Expendable assets. And we just got expended."

Before Nicholai could say anything to his commander, the payphone in the ambulance bay, and abandoned cellphone in the passenger side of an ambulance, and several phones in the Motorola store across the street began to ring.

ALICE:

They set down the street eagerly, wanting to get out of the city as soon as possible. That was when Alice sensed something. "Stop,' she commanded.

"What?" Jill demanded.

"There's something out there," she said simply.

"I don't see anything," Jill said, craning her neck to get a better look.

"That doesn't alter the fact that something is out there."

"I don't have time for this shit," Peyton growled, stomping/limping forward.

"No," Alice said, "wait."

"Sunrise isn't waiting," he snapped right back, going around her placating hand.

"No!" was the only protest that Alice was able to give before the shooting started. She heard the shots before she saw them. Well seeing them might not have been an accurate description, more like seeing what they did to Peyton. He was full of large holes and dead before he hit the ground.

"Peyton!" Jill screamed.

Alice didn't have time to focus on the S.T.A.R.S.'s agent's death, because a large creature began stalking slowly toward them. "You need to get to the school," Alice said, not bothering to look away from the monster.

"What the Hell is that?" Morales screeched.

Alice thought back to all of the time she spent working for security for umbrella and one name stood out. "Nemesis," she murmured. "Go," none of them were moving, so she yelled, "NOW!"

She could hear Jill sniffling.

"He's dead," Alice said, probably sounding harsh, but at the moment she didn't have time to be caring and gentle. "You can join him or you can do as I say and run."

She could practically feel Jill's glare on her back, but she heard the retreating footsteps of two people as she walked toward the creature.

JILL:

Alice was a true heartless bitch. But she was a heartless bitch that knew what she was doing. Jill wasn't really mad at Alice, all she was doing was trying to keep her alive,but she had to blame someone, right?

There was an old truck just begging to be driven down the street from where she'd left Alice. Not even pausing she jumped into the car. She heard the sound of the opposite door opening up and slamming shut. Looking over, she saw that none other than Terri Morales was sitting down. She looked at her in slight awe. Terri shrugged. "She doesn't have a chance in hell of beating that creature, and I have no ambition of being like that other cop, you're my best bet for survival."

Jill's awe turned to aggravation, so much for thinking she'd cared.

"Shit," Morales cursed, "there aren't any keys!"

"Move," Jill snapped, thanking her father for all of the training that she'd received.

"A cop that knows how to hotwire a car," Morales said in her best reporter voice. 'Great,' Jill thought, 'just freaking great.'

She sat back up to a running vehicle and was about to close the door when she saw the impossible: Peyton was walking toward her. "Peyton," she said timidly. But it wasn't Peyton anymore, his skin so pale it was almost white, he was shuffling, not walking, and his eyes were a milky blue. "Oh god," she said.

He came up to her and attempted to bite her neck, but she pushed him away and pointed her gun at his face right in between the eyes, but couldn't find it in her to pull the trigger. "Come on!" Morales screamed.

He started walking toward her again, this time Jill pulled the trigger and he fell to the ground, a hole in his head, and he wouldn't be getting up again.

Jill slammed the door shut, trying to fight back the nausea that came to her once she realized that Peyton's blood was on her hands and her tubetop. She put the truck in drive and sped down the street toward the school.

MATT:

LJ led them across a dark street, all of the lights were off. Matt probably shouldn't have been able to see as well as he did, but he had a feeling thay despite what he'd originally thought, Umbrella had indeed done something to him. He closed his eyes at the thought and then pushed it to the back of his mind. It didn't matter at the moment, he'd figure out exactly what went on when he got out of town.

"We only have- ah sheeeit!" LJ said, a car was speeding toward them, and from the look of it, the driver wasn't about to stop.

"Move!" Matt said, pulling the person closest to him, which happened to be Claire, out of harm's way. Leon and LJ jumped forward and he pulled Claire back. The person slammed on the brakes and pulled to a abrupt stop right beside them, there were two people in the car. The person closest to him was an Asian woman who looked as though she was going to be sick, the driver on the other hand was calmer, she was in a tubetop and shorts, she had black hair and a pale complexion. Also she had a hand gun pointed at his chest... damn he was getting slightly annoyed with that.

"We aren't infected," Matt said wearily, the cold look the driver was shooting him made his heart start beating at double the rate that it was supposed to.

"You work for Umbrella?" she asked harshly.

Matt shook his head, "No, none of us do. We're looking for a little girl said to be at the school, we're looking for a ride outta here."

"Okay," the woman said, lowering her weapon, "us too, get in."

Claire and LJ jumped into the back of the truck while Matt and Leon jumped into the bed.

"God," Matt sighed, rubbing his face, "just a week ago I was living a normal life."

"Hell," Leon grumbled, "I was living a normal life twelve hours ago!"

The truck stopped abruptly a couple of minutes later in the parking lot of a large, eerie looking building. Matt and Leon both hopped out of the truck's bed and set walked to the front of the truck where the others were waiting. "Matt," Leon said, "your friend, where would she be?"

Matt sighed, racking his brain. "I don't really know," they started walking toward the school, "Alice-"

He was cut off by Jill, "Alice as in shoulder length blonde hair, blue green eyes, and could kick just about anyone's ass from the MMA league?"

"Yeah," Matt said, his heart started beating faster, this woman knew where she was!

"She told me and Morales to run," Jill said, her voice held an edge of shame as if running was an unacceptable thing to do, "she was fighting this creature with what looked to be a rail gun, she called it 'Nemesis.'

Matt's mind shot back to Cain saying, "He's mutating, I want him in the Nemesis program."

"Impossible," Matt muttered, right before looking at his hands... DNA samples. "Oh shit!"

They made it to the door when Matt had cursed. "What is it?" Claire questioned.

He didn't want to talk about it. Hell, he didn't want to THINK about it! Just as he was contemplating how to answer Claire's question, they walked into the school, and the sound of loud and rapid gunfire.

"That's that thing!" Morales screamed.

Matt's heart sank. Alice! He saw her running across a road and something huge was following her, stalking forward, and firing a rail gun at the same time. Only one question came to Matt's mind. "What the fuck is that?"

**I was reading part of the apocalypse earlier and I swear, Matt's sense of humor is hilarious. I mean he's in a deathly serious situation, but the way he looks at it is hilarious. Especially when he and Alice are fighting Cain he says "Mutation is a part of evolution you ignorant jackass!" Shame he couldn't talk, really.**

**Yidn23: lol, Idk about bazookas, but I'd be seriously pissed off.**


	6. Chapter 6

Matt:

Nemesis was huge. The thing had to have been eight feet tall, huge muscles, and tubes were running in and out of its flesh. The weapon that he was using to shoot at Alice was so huge that it probably weighed the same as Matt did, he couldn't have carried that thing with both hands let alone with one and was walking with it while shooting. And then to top it all off, it had a rocket launcher slung across its back as if it weighed the same as the shotgun that was slung across Alice's.

"You guys can handle finding the kid, right?" Matt asked already stepping away from the others.

Leon shot him a look that resembled understanding, Claire nodded, and Jill said, "Do what you have to."

Flashing them all an appreciative smile, he ran away from the school. He heard LJ mumble, "That man is crazy as hell."

Matt silently agreed with him, but he couldn't allow Alice to fight that thing on her own... even if it was him in a strange sort of way. He willed himself to run faster, sidestepping the zombies in his path. Alice was just up ahead, the hulking creature lumbering after her at a steady pace. Matt had no idea how he did it, but some instinct told him that he'd be able to, so Matt built up more momentum and barreled straight into Nemesis's side, knocking him into a brick wall, he heard a crunching sound that was the bricks cracking or falling out from the force of the creature's contact.

Matt quickly recovered from the shock, and figured that he hadn't done much damage to the thing. "Come on, Alice, we need to... damn," Nemesis had gotten back up, and if he had the ability to feel emotions, Matt would have put serious money on the fact that he looked pissed. Matt didn't have time to move before Nemesis swatted him out of the way like he weighed two pounds, he was only airborne for a second before his head made contact with the same brick wall that he'd pushed Nemesis into. His head pounded and his vision was swimming, he was fighting the blackness that was trying to take him over.

ALICE:

Alice was still in shock about Matt's brute strength. How did he manage to do that? But as soon as Matt had been swatted aside like an annoying fly, she quickly snapped back into reality. Charging forward, she propelled herself in the air, landing a hopefully powerful spinkick on Nemesis's face. He slid back a few feet and Alice ran forward, not intent on letting the monster recover. Taking out both of her knives that the biker had been so kind as to have left. Jumping up again, she impaled Nemesis in the neck at both sides. Breathing harshly, she took a step backward. Nemesis fell to its knees, completely still.

Alice smiled at the thought, and was about to turn and check on Matt when Nemesis started to attempt to get up again. He didn't get too far, however, Matt was right behind him, he kicked the thing on its back, Alice heard the harsh impact, and Nemesis fell face first to the ground. "Now stay down, damn it," Matt snapped.

He looked up at Alice, who smiled slightly and said, "I see you made it."

Matt nodded, "Yeah, met your friends too... looks like you've been busy."

"You too?" Alice inquired.

He nodded, "More than I'd have liked. I wouldn't have liked any at all."

"We can catch up later," Alice said, "we need to get that kid."

Nodding in agreement, he took off after Alice, both of them walking toward the school.

JILL:

God if LJ and Morales didn't shut up, she was going to scream. Leon and Claire at least had brains. Well from the pictures that Chris had shown her, Claire was his sister, she was going to be smart, and Leon was one of the rare smart cops.

They walked in, Claire and Leon both grimly serious like Jill, but LJ and Morales were talking about their school lives.

"I always hated school," Morales muttered.

"Not me," LJ said, "I was my school's ghetto superstar, I had it all, guns, money, hoes, jazz choice- I did it Renaissance style."

"Come on," Leon snapped, "let's focus!"

"Yeah," Jill spat, finally reaching her breaking point as well, "is there any danger of you shutting the fuck up for more than one second?"

LJ held up his hands defensively, "Fine, whatever, let's find this kid."

"We're going to need to split up," Claire said after a moment of tense silence.

"You're right," Jill said bracingly. "Claire, you take the left wing of the classrooms, Morales, you take the right. LJ, science department, Leon office and cafeteria, I'll handle the basement."

"Wait!" Morales protested... of course. "I'm not going out there on my own! I don't even have a gun!"

Jill quickly solved that problem. She pulled out one of her hand guns and handed it to Morales.

"But..." the weather woman protested again, "I've never shot one!"

"It'll be alright," Leon said in a soothing voice, "there's nothing to it, all you do is point, pull, repeat." Leon was a really nice guy, Jill observed, but he was probably much too nice for his own good.

Morales smiled faintly at him before awkwardly holding the gun and repeating Leon's instructions under her breath.

"Alright, we'll meet back in an hour, don't be late unless you want to be left behind because we'll assume you're dead."

They all nodded and went their separate ways.

TERRI:

Terri Morales didn't need this. She was on the news she was famous! Well if she was so damn famous, WHY was she stuck in a town full of the walking dead? Why was she carrying a gun? She HATED guns with a burning passion. If she had it her way, she wouldn't have been here with only one halfway sane fan, LJ. She would be in LA that was her dream, LA covering real stories, not this dump in the middle of nowhere.

Grumbling about the unfairness of life, she opened a door to a classroom. Leon Kennedy had been the only sympathetic one, she needed sympathy like a hole in the head, what she really needed was someone to get her out of here without having her look through the school, which was dark, creepy, and damp, and risking her life. It was okay though she was going to get her Emmy for this.

Looking around the room she was about to leave when she saw a small girl sitting right in the middle of it. Her head was down so all she saw was a mane of curly blonde hair. 'No way' Terri thought.

Taking a deep breath, she turned on her camera and set it on a table, people needed to see that she had a caring and nurturing side to her, the people would love it! Setting that dammed gun on the desk beside the camera, she slowly walked over to the girl. "Excuse me, sweetheart, are you Angela Ashford?"

The girl didn't turn around. 'She's probably scared' Terri thought.

She put a hand on the girl's shoulder. Slowly she lifted her head up, and Terri saw a face covered with blood, skin missing from her neck, and her eyes were a blank milky white. She took a step back, about to reach for the gun when another child walked out of the shadows followed by twenty more, Terri was backed up into a corner with no way out. The girl that she'd originally found grabbed her arm and bit into it. Terri let loosed a bloodcurdling scream, and the rest of the children swarmed her, and the only thing that she was even remotely regretful of as she died was that she wouldn't be around to receive that Emmy.

CARLOS:

Carlos's day was starting to depress him. He was certain that he was going to die, and the only thing that'd stopped him from blowing his brains out over the sidewalk in order to prevent himself from becoming a zombie was that Nicholai needed to get out. So he found himself rushing as best he could to the school to find the small girl.

Once they were in the building, they split up, Carlos went left Nicholai went right. As he was walking down the hallway in what seemed to be the science ward, he was still contemplating putting himself out of his misery, but if that girl was anywhere near here she didn't need to see anymore horrors than she'd already witnessed with him killing himself.

He passed a door and heard noises. Figuring that if it was a zombie he could shoot it, and if it was the girl they could get out of the hell hole, he walked inside the classroom. What he saw was a ridiculously dressed African American man who was looking at a skeleton, he'd said something so he was apparently alive,but the man who'd just walked out of the shadow hadn't been. The alive one hadn't noticed the zombie until it was almost too late, Carlos hurried forward and snapped its neck before it could do any damage.

Looking down Carlos saw that he dropped his weapon. Leaning down, he picked it up and handed it to him. "You might want this."

The man all but snatched it out of his hand obviously shaken up by the attack. "You got the call too?" Carlos inquired.

"Huh?" the man asked.

"You're looking for the girl?" Carlos clarified.

"Oh, yeah," the man confirmed.

"Then I guess were partners," Carlos said. "Partners?" the man said, "don't get too comfy with partners, I work alone!"

Carlos blinked at the man, he clearly had s mental condition.

"Whatever, man, I'm LJ."

"Carlos," he said, "we need to go"

LJ nodded, "Come on the faster we find her the better.'

JILL:

She'd already checked off her sector of the school and had only come out with a handful of undead zombie teacher and the odd zombie child. Deciding that Morales was too much of a basket case to be anywhere close to competent, she went to the east wing of the school where she'd sent her.

Once she got to the wing where Morales was, she noticed that only one door was opened. Sighing at the thought of her huddled up in a corner somewhere alone because of a sudden scary noise! She opened the door. One strange thing: no Morales, no one. Jill walked inside. With her heart pounding, she pulled out her hand gun and made slow progress to a desk with two objects sitting on it. There was a camera and Jill's other gun... oh dear.

"You cane help her," came a voice of a small girl that was suddenly standing beside the book shelves on the far side of the classroom.

Out of pure reaction, she pointed her gun at the girl. Immediately, she lowered it and said, "Are you Angela?"

The girl nodded. Jill attempted at a smile, but it probably looked grim. Picking up the camera, she walked over to Angela. "Your daddy sent me and a few others to find you," she held out her hand. "You ready to leave?"

Angela nodded and grabbed her hand. Jill slipped the camera into Angela's bag before taking it from her. "I'll carry this."

The girl nodded but kept a firm grip on the lunchbox. Shrugging, Jill led her out of the room, deciding that starting a conversation might calm her down slightly. "Angela is such a big name for such a little girl."

"I'm nine years old," she said indignantly, "I'm not a little girl!"

"Of course not," Jill said quickly, smiling at her.

"My friends call me Angie," she said after a moment of silence.

"Angie," Jill repeated. "I like that."

LEON:

Looking around the cafeteria was tedious. All he'd done was fight off two undead lunch ladies, and broken the neck of a rather hungry looking delivery man. The dogs were what made him wish it was all tedious again.

He'd met up with Jill and the child named Angie. They were walking through the cafeteria, set on meeting the others when things took a turn for the worst. They were about to creep back into the cafeteria and walk out the other door which would take them to the front of the school where they would meet the others.

That was when Angie said, "Don't!"

"It'll be okay, Angie," Leon said reassuringly.

"No, the creatures are in there!" the girl said warningly.

"We can take care of the creature," Jill said, squeezing her hand reassuringly.

Angie had a doubtful expression on her face, but followed anyway. As they walked into the cafeteria, Leon noticed that there were more monsters in there, Angie had been right. "We can outrun them," Jill whispered to the clearly frightened girl as the zombie lunch ladies came creeping toward them.

"Not them," Angie said, pointing at the same woman that Leon's gun was trained on, "them!" she gestured towards the door that they wanted to get to.

hat Leon saw filled him with dread and made him do a double take on the doors. Two dogs were standing in their way. Not the friendly looking ones either. They were mean looking dobermans, not what he wanted to see. They were missing most of their torso, he saw their ribs... zombies probably didn't like the bones, and some of their internal organs, none if which seemed to be moving. Leon dearly wanted to back away and walk out the way he'd came but he couldn't because the dammed mutts had seen them.

He figured he had all of two seconds before they ran at him and quite frankly, he had no idea what to do. Thankfully Jill was thinking. She threw Angie behind her and pulled out her gun, firing at the dog that had just started running. The jarred his wits back into his head, sadly it was too late, the dog was already too close as he pulled his Magnum out. He fell back, hitting his head hard on the floor as the dog landed on top of him.

Even with his head spinning and hurting like hell, Leon wasn't about to go down without a fight. He grabbed at the dog's head as it tried to bite at him. Finding a good grip, he twisted with all his strength until he heard a satisfying snapping noise. Immediately the dog went limp. Shaking slightly, Leon pushed the now completely dead dog off and got to his feet, wondering why Jill hadn't come to his aid. As soon as he looked he got his answer. She'd backed up, trying to get Angie out of the way, shielding her with her own body because two other dogs had come in.

'Give me a break,' was the only thought that came to Leon's mind as they both jumped at the same time. Leon jumped in between Jill and Angie and the dogs, aiming his gun at the closer of the two and bracing himself for death. He shot the closest dog right between the eyes just as the sound of another gun went off. The other dog went down right in front of him, missing the majority of his head

Leon looked back and saw that it hadn't been Jill that'd fired at all. Immediately he looked around and saw that a man with red close cropped red hair was in the room. The uniform that he wore marked him as Umbrella security. "Thought you could use some help," he said, his accent was thick and sounded Russian. "Nicholai Sokolov at your service."

"You work for Umbrella," Jill said, the mistrust in her voice was evident.

"Used to," Nicholai said, "but ever since they left me for dead, I consider myself freelance."

Jill nodded. "Seems like a legit reason."

"I see you got the girl," he nodded to Angie.

Nodding, Jill said, "This is Angie."

Nicholai kneeled and smiled kindly at Angie. "Hello, we're going to take you to see your father."

Leon looked over, his blood turned to ice and he barely had time to yell, "Look out!" before another dog that they must have missed jumped forward.

It hit Nicholai from the side, knocking him over, and it immediately tore a chunk of skin from his arm. "No!" Leon said, moving forward.

Jill was immediately by his side and pulled him back. "Go," Nicholai said gruffly, "I've got this son of a bitch!"

Jill grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him out of the room. The last thing Leon heard was another growl and Nicholai say, "Shit," before he was out of earshot.

**Because you all make my day, I'm updating early and expect a chapter on my normal day of Tuesday. I read the reviews and I am so glad that you like my writing. Also I'm going to change the title from Resident Evil: Apocalypse my Version to Resident Evil: my Version, because its going to go past Apocalypse, that is if you want it to, of course.**

**I sadly don't own RE, even though I would love to. (I'd bring Matt, Carlos, Angie, and LJ back!)**


	7. Chapter 7

MATT:

As soon as they set foot in the eerie establishment, Matt could sense something strange going on. Other than the walking corpses, that was. He didn't know what it was but he knew he didn't trust it.

Looking around the room they were in, even with the dim light that the full moon was casting in, he could make out the finer details of the blood spattered walls and felt slightly sick about all the monstrosities that had occurred. But he couldn't worry about that at the moment. There was something infected in this building. Sure he could sense the zombies as well but this... whatever it was gave off the same signal that Alice did to him.

Matt went out of his way to say, "I'll go this way," he pointed left in the general direction of the entity.

Alice looked at him knowingly. She could sense it too, that much was obvious. Surprisingly, though, she didn't put up any arguments, just nodded in agreement and walked the opposite direction, calling, "Try to be careful," over her shoulder, her footsteps echoed quietly off the walls and were gone before she was out of sight.

He nodded his head mutely and walked away from her, ready to get the hellish nightmare over with. Walking through the dark school, he saw that the corpses were everywhere, shuffling down the long hallways, crept in classrooms, lurking in the shadows, or just wandering around aimlessly. The only thing he was thankful about was that whatever Umbrella did to him, the monsters didn't seem to be interested in him. 'Hm,' he thought wryly as a small child shuffled past him as if he wasn't there, 'maybe I smell funny.' He knew they did, the sweet smell of human decay was sickly enough to make him want to keel over and empty his stomach of whatever contents were in it (probably nothing).

He was obviously getting closer, whatever was giving off that much infection was hitting his internal radar a thousand times harder than it was before. With a start, he realized that whatever it was had led him into the the cafeteria. 'Maybe the food mutated,' he thought, apparently it'd gotten worse from when he was at school. He walked inside and looked around, taking in the tables which had been pushed to the side, chairs had been thrown everywhere, and pools of blood spattered the floor in every direction he looked. Finally he took in a very sad sight.

There was the body of what used to be a man. Chunks were taken out of him in various places including his arms, neck, and stomach. From what was left on his uniform, Matt guessed he was one of Umbrella's goons. "Leaving their own behind now... sad," Matt sighed quietly to himself.

Not particularly wanting another zombie running around, he knelt down and broke the man's neck. Just in time too, the man was just starting to twitch, another couple of seconds and he would have been completely turned. Getting back up, he moved on, the kitchen seemed to be where the entity was coming from. Getting ready for another possibility of a fight, he slowly walked through the large set of double doors at the end of the room.

He heard a strangled yell and immediately he took in the situation. Leon was backing up slowly into a wall while a mutilated dog on the other side of the door was growling at him, inching forward menacingly.

'There's more of these?' was the only question that ran through his mind.

"Watch out!" Leon cried as the dog pounced.

The dog wasn't after Matt, that much was obvious as it jumped. It attempted to jump around him. As quick as light, his hand shot out and he grabbed the dog by the neck, wrenching it backward as hard as he could until he heard the telltale snap of its neck. He dropped it and looked over at Leon, who seemed to be in a mixture if shock, awe, and relief.

"I'd probably ask you how the hell you'd managed to do that, but at the moment I don't really care," Leon said, taking a shakey step forward.

Matt grinned, "Wouldn't really be able to answer anyway."

"We found the girl," Leon said suddenly and whatever color he'd managed to regain in his face suddenly disappeared. "We need to go, there were two of those dogs. I tried to distract both of them but only one seemed interested."

"Come on, then," Matt said, gesturing for Leon to show him where they were.

Leon started walking and he was leading the way toward the massively infected entity. Matt was starting to feel suspicious about the small girl. How was she, of all people, able to survive a school full of the undead?

They walked through another set of doors to where all of the stoves were. The room was dark but Matt could see just fine. Leon on the other hand, probably not so well. Scanning the room, he came to realize just how large it really was. Anything could be roaming around behind the shelves of food, racks of pots and pans, and carts of freshly prepared meals that were probably supposed to be served they day... well so much for that. The place looked like a tornado had been through it, making it quite obvious that the lunch ladies may have went down, but they certainly didn't go down without one hell of a fight.

Knives were strewn across the floor, Matt leaned down and picked one of the larger ones up, as he leaned down, he noticed a pair of legs shuffling forward ungracefully. If there was one, there was most likely more. "Leon," Matt said in a barely audible whisper, "we need to get a move on."

Leon gave him a questioning look. Matt gestured toward the shelf that he'd seen the walking corpse's feet pulling themselves through. He nodded curtly, and Matt started forward, his senses straining trying to pick up anything out of the norm. The largely infected object was back there as well, but Matt was positive that it was the small girl. He could sense Alice as well, she was shockingly closer than he'd expected.

Upon an impulse that was unknown to him, he took a deep smell of the room around him and he smelt something like... like... "Gas." Matt muttered. "Ah shit," he cursed.

"What?" Leon demanded.

"We don't have time," Matt said.

"Wha-" Leon was abruptly cut off as Matt tackled him. Both of them hit the floor hard. Not a moment too soon, the explosion was hot against Matt's back, he could feel his skin blistering as he tried to protect Leon as best he could.

When the fiery heat died down, he groaned and managed to push himself off the rookie cop. "Sorry about that, Leon," he managed through the itching pain as his body began to heal itself already.

"What the," Leon said, rubbing his cheek where it'd made contact as he faceplanted the ground. "How the... Man, are you alright?"

Matt managed a stiff nod. "Been better."

"What just happened?"

"I do believe that Jill is a damn genius," Matt answered.

"Come on, let's figure out what's going on," Leon prompted, getting to his feet. "That is assuming you can walk, of course." He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly as he waited for an answer.

"Yeah, I'm fine Matt said, standing up and fighting back a groan of pain as the freshly formed scabs over the fresh wounds cracked.

He winced and followed Leon forward, curious as to what'd happened.

ALICE:

Well Matt was safe. Upon arriving at the school, he'd hurriedly suggested that he go left, the direction of a strongly infected figure, obviously Ashford's child. Being head of security for the Hive in Umbrella made her privy to knowledge that other people knew nothing about. Like, for example, the fact that the T-Virus was made for Charles Ashford's daughter, it made sense that she was infected with it on a level just as massive as Alice was herself. Matt was infected too, it seemed to have effected his strength more than anything, but the amount wasn't anywhere close to her's, thank God. He was infected though, and she figured that he could sense her too, though he probably had no idea what was giving off that much infection, so, thinking that he was helping keep Alice safe, he insisted on covering that route. Keeping her safe in the middle of a school fill of infected creatures may have been redundant, but it was still thoughtful all the same.

She snorted at the irony of it all. She found a good looking guy who was nice, probably single, and courageous right in the middle of a hellhole. The life she lived was truly messed up. Sighing, she brought herself back to reality and started paying attention, cursing herself for becoming distracted.

Her footsteps were a silent as humanly possible, but with her now extremely acute sense of hearing, she could hear them echoing down the long, filthy, dark, ominous hallway, along the scraping sound of the corpses shuffling along. She held her knives that she had found in the Harley in her hands securely, not using any of her gun for fear that the noise would attract hoards of them. Those things always followed noise. She passed several shuffling aimlessly in the hallway, breaking most of their necks as she remembered what Rain had said to her in the Hive and figured that most of them would have the same request.

She was a hundred feet from a turn on the hallway when she heard the sound of footsteps trying the best to be silent. They were around the corner and if her instincts were right, the first room to the left. Someone was alive in the school.

Smiling in relief, she walked forward more quickly. This was the entire reason for her splitting up from Matt. She was looking for the other survivors that'd been with him so they could get the hell out. As she made it to the corner, she saw that the first classroom door was indeed open. Slowly she walked in, saying, "I'm alive," in a loud whisper so the girl that was currently occupying the room wouldn't shoot her.

The girl had been looking the opposite direction, but as soon as Alice spoke, she jumped and turned around. Alice noticed that she had red-brown hair, brown eyes, looked to be eighteen or so, and a weary expression on her face that was meant for people years older than the both of them.

"I'm Alice," Alice said slowly, smiling assuringly.

"Matt's friend?" the girl said.

Alice nodded. "You know Matt?"

"He saved me and my friend, Leon from the police station earlier. My name's Claire. Is Matt okay?"

"He's fine," Alice assured her, "probably has a headache but he's fine. We split up, he's gone after the girl and I came around here, looking for survivors."

Claire nodded and said, "Who've you found so far?"

"Just you, but I only started looking."

Claire nodded in understanding, as Alice caught a sign of movement behind Claire. "Don't move," she ordered.

Without questioning her, Claire stiffened up and Alice pulled her arm back and flicked the knife through the air at full speed in one smooth movement. A second later, the sound of a body hitting the floor echoed through the room.

Claire spun around and cringed. "How the hell didn't I see him," she murmured. "Better yet," she said in a slightly louder voice, obviously talking to Alice, "how did you see him?"

"I'll explain it on the ride out of the city," Alice said. "Let's get outta here."

When Alice walked out, she immediately turned the way she'd come. "Wait," Claire said, "that's the way back to the front of the school."

"I know," Alice said, "we can't go that way," she pointed down the hallway which turned right again maybe fifty feet ahead, "forty to fifty infected, going back is clear."

"How... you know what," Claire said, "I can't wait to hear your explanation."

"You probably won't believe it," Alice shrugged, "but that's beside the point. Let's get moving."

Silently they crept back down the hall. They went all of ten feet when she noticed that Claire had a gun in her hand, ready to be used at all times.

"How are you with a knife?" Alice inquired.

Claire shrugged. "Never really used one, so I don't really know."

"Well," Alice said, "you're about to find out, put your gun away. They're attracted by noise."

Claire did as instructed and Alice handed one of the knives. They were easily a foot long, thin but strong metal, and wickedly sharp. Claire took it, looked at it in wonder for a moment, then she looked up at Alice with a brave face and said, "Let's go kick some ass."

They made it down the hallways without too much headache, like Alice predicted, there were no zombies all the way back to the front doors of the school. "Alright, Claire," Alice said turning her way, "this is where you get to make a choice. There's no telling what's ahead. The little girl and Matt are both further back in the school. You can stay here if you want."

Claire didn't hesitate, "I'm coming with you, you never know, you might need the help."

"I can try," Alice warned, "but I can't fully promise your safety."

"I know," Claire said, certainty in her voice. She she was doing and she was okay with it.

Alice smiled, her admiration for the woman growing just a bit. "Very well then, let's go." She walked forward down the hallway making it so that she was first, making quick use of her knife before they managed to go thirty feet. A woman with glasses hanging on by a piece of knotted grey and white hair and a chunk of her neck torn clean off was shuffling down the hallway with a purpose: Claire. Alice stepped forward and with all her strength she drove the knife into the woman's skull, immediately she crumbled to the ground, completely still.

She looked back and saw that Claire looked awestruck.

"Come on," she whispered, "let's find the others."

Claire gestured for her to go on and they both continued walking. No more corpses seemed to be around. 'Strange,' she thought. 'Where are they?'

Not that she was complaining, the easier it was to get out, the better. Slowly, she walked forward, her eyes peeled open for monsters. But none came. They came to a set of double doors which showed a bloody mess of a cafeteria. She could tell they were back there, but she wanted a quicker way in. "Come on," she said to Claire. Both of them hurried past the doors and further down the dreary hall. Down toward the end there was a dumpster, and a full emergency box. Smelling the air, she could tell that someone turned on the gas stoves, that could only mean one thing.

"Claire," she said, "I want you to go and hide inside of that dumpster."

She looked at Alice questioningly.

"Nothing's in it," Alice assured. "Hurry, fast as possible."

Without hesitation, she ran forward and jumped into the dumpster. Alice ran forward and pulled out the fireproof blanket. Just then the door opened and Jill and a small girl ran through. Jill pulled out a box of matches and just as two dogs broke through the windows of the door, Jill lit the entire box and threw it in. Alice grabbed Angela inside the blanket and Jill ran and jumped into the dumpster, tipping it sideways as the match made contact with the gas. They dogs were still in midair when the entire kitchen exploded, sending a deafening, fiery roar past them, so hot that she felt the heat permeating through the edges of the blanket where she wasn't able to fully cover.

As quickly as it started, it was over. Alice took the blanket off to see the charred remains of the dogs, along with a blackened hallway, and the inside of the kitchen looking considerably worse than the outside. She stared down at Angela, realizing that her assumption had been correct. She was infected.

"Nice of you to show up, Alice," Jill said from somewhere off to the side. "You seem to be making a habit of showing up in the nick of time to save someone's ass."

Alice didn't find it in her to answer.

How? How could she not have turned? Her immune system wasn't exactly the best with her illness. Then it hit her: the anti-virus!

"You two know each other?" Jill inquired.

"She's infected," Alice explained, "on a massive level."

Alice turned to look are Jill, who was frowning. "How do you know that?"

"Because she is too," Angela answered.

"Wait a second," Jill shouted at Alice, "you're infected! When were you planning on telling me?"

Alice ignored Jill and gestured to Angela's lunchbox. "Let me see."

"No!" Angela said, trying to keep it out of Alice's reach. Alice just leaned forward and yanked of out of the girl's grip.

She opened the box and it displayed four syringes containing the green antivirus. "This is the antivirus," Alice explained for Jill and Claire's sake. "The cure for the T-virus."

"There's a cure?" Claire asked.

Their conversation was cut off by rapid footsteps, too fast to be the undead. Alice's head snapped toward the kitchen and Matt and a man who she'd never seen before came into view. Both looked bruised and beat, but Matt looked worse for wear out of the both of them. His shirt had tattered holes burned throughout, exposing painfully blistered skin.

"You look like hell, Matt," Alice observed.

"Really," he said bending his neck to the left, cracking it, "never would have guessed."

Alice turned back to Claire and said, "There is a cure, isn't that right," she turned and looked at Angela.

The small girl didn't say a word. So Alice closed the lunchbox and handed it back to her. "Where did you get this?"

"My daddy made it for me, he's sick and one day I was going to be just like him, he wanted to stop that, all he wanted to do was make me better. He found a way to make me stronger."

"The T-virus?" Jill inquired?

Angela nodded in confirmation. "But they took his invention away from him, I heard him yelling at some of the employees of his company one day, that was when they came to take it. He's not a bad man, honest."

Tears started to fall down the young girl's eyes. "Honest." She collapsed into Alice's arms, sobbing.

Alice held her and murmured, "I believe you, dear, I believe you. Its going to be okay, everything's going to be okay."

Alice looked around at the others, all of them had grim looks on their faces.

The silence was broken by a door at the end of the hallway creaking open. Immediately, Alice let go of the crying girl and pulled her shotgun around and pointed it at a Hispanic man in an Umbrella uniform which read OLIVERA who had a large gun pointing right back at her, a red laser resting on her chest.

"Don't point that thing at me unless you intend to use it," he warned.

"He's cool!" A voice behind him shouted.

Alice didn't recognize it, but apparently the others did, she could tell by the look of recognition on their faces. She pointed her gun away from him and saw that he was doing the same.

A ridiculously dressed African American man came out from behind him. "He made the same deal we all did."

Jill was looking at Olivera, "How many of you guys are there?"

"What do you mean?" Olivera asked.

"There was a red headed man that was attacked in the cafeteria," Matt answered. "I broke his neck right before he changed."

He bent his head down. "Nicholai."

Alice took in the way he looked. Pale, sickly, bloodshot eyes. "When were you bitten?" she inquired.

"Two hours ago," Olivera answered.

Alice smiled as Angela offered up her Spiderman lunchbox. "Today's your lucky day."

"Nobody's having a lucky day in this town today, Alice." He said.

Alice looked at him with a raised eyebrow, he knew her name?

"I don't know if you remembered me, Carlos Olivera."

She felt a glimmer of recognition in the back of her mind.

"I have a truck waiting out back," Jill said impatiently, "you can give him the shot there."

"I hear that!" The African American man said, "we just need to find the pretty TV lady."

"LJ," Jill said, "pretty TV lady is dead."

"You shittin me!" LJ exclaimed. "She can't be dead she's famous!"

Jill pulled a camera out of her bag and said, "Well she is, all we have is her legacy." She put it back inside the backpack and walked on.

"Damn," Alice heard LJ murmured. "There goes my chance at stardom."

**Hey! Thank you for all of the reviews! I really want to know if you want me to continue this story after apocalypse! I own nothing.**


	8. Chapter 8

MATT:

When they walked out of the school, two zombies were shuffling around on the street, not paying them a bit of attention. That was until the phone right outside of the school started ringing. They looked over at them and Alice motioned for Jill and him to take care of them as she answered the phone. Matt walked away from her and over to the nearest zombie with Jill at his side. Five seconds later both of them were motionless on the already gory street, their heads laying at extremely odd angles. Mutely, they both walked back just as Alice grabbed the phone back from Angie.

"Well," she said impatiently.

Silence as Dr. Ashford talked. After a moment, Alice said, "We'll see you soon, doctor," and she hung the phone up.

"Come on," Alice said, "we don't have much time."

As soon as they got to Jill's truck Matt, Leon, and LJ jumped in the bed. Claire rode shotgun while Alice, Carlos, and Angie all rode in the back, Alice held Angie's Spiderman lunchbox in her hands, prepared to give Carlos the cure.

As Jill drove, the three men in the back rode in silence, Matt didn't know about them, but he was imagining his life after he got out of this hellhole. First thing: he was going to expose Umbrella for the company of corporate assholes they were. Next: damn, he wanted a nice long, two hour shower. After that: vacation time. He didn't care where as long as it wasn't even in the same continent as Raccoon City, he was okay with it.

Deciding to think on it another time, he brought himself out of his thoughts and watched the decaying zombies shuffle around in a blur as Jill zoomed past them. Apparently they were speeding to city hall to fight for their ride out of the city. As exhilarating as that sounded, Matt had a very bad feeling about it all. He swallowed it, though. The wall that'd been put up around the city didn't give him a choice in the matter of what he would like to do.

He just hated taking lives. Of course he'd done it before, being a federal Marshall had insured that, he'd chased many fugitives and some of them hadn't wanted to come, it was either him or them. That didn't mean that he didn't regret it, that he didn't try his damndest to not kill them. And the people that he was off to fight now, they would fire at him and he would be forced to kill them too. They wouldn't be getting out, but he and the others would. The thought saddened him greatly, but he pushed it aside he'd do what he had to.

Jill parked the car a block away from the city hall which was in burning and smoking ruins. It ensured that they wouldn't be noticed, zombies can't exactly drive a truck. Matt hopped down from the truck's bed and walked to the front where Alice, Angie, and a much healthier looking Carlos Olivera had come from the back. Jill and Claire were still in the vehicle, looking through a couple pairs of binoculars.

A few minutes later, they came out, their faces neutral. "We have good news and we have had news." They informed them.

"Good news first," LJ said.

"Very lightly guarded," Claire said, "three men."

"Four," Carlos said, "they always have a sniper."

"Whatever," LJ said. "There's only four of them! Let's go and kick some ass!"

"That's where the bad news comes in," Claire said placatingly.

"Which is?" Leon prompted.

"Their fire power makes us look like were armed with pellet guns."

"That's just great," Matt sighed. He was sure it wouldn't kill him, but that didn't mean he wanted to get shot up! He'd just finished healing from all those burns he'd received in the explosion at the school.

"What kind firepower are we talking about?" Alice inquired.

"MP5Ks," Claire said grimly.

"I'll take care of them," Alice said after a minute

Everyone in the group looked at her like she was insane. "What?" Matt demanded.

"I'll take care of it," she repeated.

"I heard you," Matt said, "you can't expect us to be okay with you doing this! They're trained soldiers, you could be walking into a trap!"

"Don't worry," Alice said, "I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" Claire asked worriedly.

"Completely."

Matt looked at Alice pleadingly before he realized that it was useless trying to sway her. "Fine," he said grudgingly, "do what you must."

ALICE:

Standing atop of the building closest to the helicopter, she saw that Carlos had been right. There was a sniper laying on his stomach, along with a set of grappling gear beside him, already tied off, in case he needed to make a hasty exit, his sniper pointing in the direction that she knew Carlos, Jill, Matt, and Leon were headed. Silently she walked up and saw that he had a head shot on Carlos. She placed her hand over the scope and the sniper inhaled sharply before looking up. Alice smiled evilly and shook her head at him before removing her hand from the scope and proceeded to swiftly break his neck. Even as the man was falling to the ceiling, she was tying herself to the rope and running toward the edge of the roof, and jumped off.

She hit the wall with her feet and started running down, she hit the ground silently, and went at the three guards running. One of the guards, possibly by instinct, turned around just in time for Alice to reach over and snap his neck. The other two turned around half a second later, the closest one turned to the heel of her hand being driven into his nose, sending him flying backward, bones and cartilage ramming into his brain. Stepping forward slightly, her hand flew forward, clamping around the soldiers throat, crushing it with one good clench. She managed everything within a matter of seconds none of the guards had enough time to reach for their weapons or even so much as shout out for help.

About the same time that the third one hit the ground, Jill, Matt, Leon, and Carlos had arrived, while LJ and Claire had stayed behind to guard Angie. Both of them seemed disgruntled about their jobs but were convinced that they were better off with the child.

Alice smiled as the others walked up. That was until Carlos suddenly had his combat knife in his hand and he threw it past Alice. She heard a thump behind her and a muffled curse. She turned around in time to see the second guard, who's nose she'd smashed, fall to the floor, they hilt of the knife sticking out of his chest.

"Missed one," he said with a small smile.

"Had to leave something for you to do," Alice replied.

Rolling her eyes, Jill stuck both pinkies in her mouth and blew hard on them, creating a loud shrill whistle. Alice cringed at the sound and saw that Matt was doing the same from beside her. Seconds later, she saw LJ, Angie, and Claire come running.

"Woah," LJ said, "nice work!"

"Come on," Alice said, "lets go." She wanted to get Angie out of there, she'd seen enough dead bodies.

She led them into the helicopter's cargo area, and she saw that two beds were laying side by side. Both of them identical to the one that she woke up to in the Raccoon City Hospital. From the look on Matt's face, he realized the same thing she did around the same time.

This helicopter was meant to take her and Matt outside of the city.

"Come on," Matt said, considerably paler than normal. "We need to go."

"Why?" Carlos questioned. "We still have twenty minutes 'til sunrise, plenty of time."

"No," Alice replied. "We need to leave now." She pointed to the beds. "Matt and I are the only ones meant to leave this place alive."

Everyone's eyes widened in realization, even little Angie's.

"I'll get us in the air," Alice said. She moved to the cockpit, opened the door and there sat the pilot of the copter. Arrayed in all black just like the rest of the Umbrella commandos.

"Take off," Alice ordered, trying to look intimidating despite her impatience and raging heartbeat.

The pilot said nothing, and continued to look forward.

Alice took her Colt out and pointed it to his temple and the pilot merely smiled.

"What's the rush?" a familiar voice said behind her.

Alice turned around, prepared to scatter Cain's brains on the wall behind him. But immediately she stopped, Cain had an advantage of his own. He had little Angie Ashford in front of him, his gun pointed directly at her temple. Alice looked at the small girl, a look of terror graced her features.

Alice felt a surge of anger race through her. Why? Why the hell would Cain bring a child into this? Alice knew that he'd used a city as a testing ground for the failure that was the Nemesis program. But a child to blackmail her into doing what he wanted. Who would stoop so low? This jackass apparently.

Alice dropped her weapon and looked at him in pure anger. "Let's go,"Cain said, smiling as though he'd suggested something as innocent as going for a stroll around a non zombie infested town.

Alice walked forward and they went into the cargo hold, and out the open door, and onto the pavement again. Looking around, she saw that another helicopter had arrived without her noticing, and that everyone but Matt, Angie, and a man thay Alice had never seen before had their wrists bound and were looking at the unexpected amount of soldiers with distaste. The man who Alice had never met was on his knees, looking at Angie in shock and fear.

"Daddy!" she yelled. Cain removed the gun from her temple and she ran forward, running into her father's embrace. So this was Dr. Ashford.

The guards that were standing over the handcuffed prisoners said, "What do we do with them, sir?"

"Not a damn thing," Cain answered. "They'll be dead soon enough, right after we finish our little experiment."

Alice looked at him. They had approximately sixteen minutes until sunrise. What was this bastards thinking?

"Even though the event of the outbreak were regrettable, it did give us opportunity to test out a few of our experiments. Alice widened her eyes and glared at the bastard. Regrettable? The event were a hell of a lot more than regrettable! And it would be just like Cain to use this as a freaking testing play ground! He didn't care about anything but himself.

"What kind of test do you want to do in a fucking town that's about to get blown to hell?" Matt demanded, the look on his face was pure and utter disgust.

"Simple," Cain says, "you two are our most important experiments, but the question is: which one is most efficient in battle? Fight."

"What?" Alice demanded.

"Fight. The person who comes out alive gets to get out of here, free ride on the chopper to the umbrella headquarters."

"I'm not fighting her," Matt said hotly.

"I refuse," Alice said.

"Is that how you want to do this?" Cain said, an edge to his voice that Alice didn't quite like.

He raised his weapon and fired. The bullet hitting Dr Ashford clean in the head. He fell backward, dead before he hit the ground.

"Daddy!" Angie yelled, running toward him.

"Bastard!" Claire shouted in defiance.

"He was a valuable asset to the corporation, the others mean nothing to me. Fight or they die."

"What makes you think I care?" Alice bluffed.

Cain marched over and put the gun against Claire's temple. "Fight or this one dies, but if you don't care..."

Leon was struggling, with his hands behind his back, with a soldier that had just grabbed him as he lunged at Cain. Claire closed her eyes, jaw clenched, and she was obviously waiting for death.

"No!" Alice and Matt yelled at the same time.

"Very good," Cain said smiling, "now fight."

She looked at the others and saw Carlos nod. A surge of hope coursed through her. They hadn't done a thorough check for weapons, Carlos still had the combat knife up his sleeve.

"A real fight," Cain said, "if I even so much as think that you're letting up, I'll kill her and the cop."

Leon struggled even harder at the news.

Alice turned and faced Matt, who mirrored her actions. He looked about as pissed as she felt. "I'm sorry," she said before running at him. She threw a well aimed punch at his stomach, which he blocked, while trying to bring her feet from under her. Alice jumped out the way and backed up. They both circled around each other, trying to find a weak spot in their defense. Matt charged this time, pain in his expression as he managed to punch her in the side hard enough to send her flying backward twenty or so feet, before falling hard on the pavement.

Cain was clapping from the sidelines as if he was watching a football game. Alice got back up and stocked forward toward Matt, who looked at though he'd been the one that was punched instead of her. He charged her again, but Alice managed to roll aside and come up behind him. He spun around just as Alice planted a kick in his stomach, causing him to slide back a few feet and double over. Alice walked over and kneed him in the face, sending him flying backward, landing hard on his back, the breath knocked completely out of him.

She winced and sent him an apologetic look. He jumped to his feet, completely recovered a second later. Running at her, he managed to ram his shoulder into her chest and drove her backward into the wall. She hit with a sickening crunch, sliding down to the ground. She'd felt her ribs crack, and her shoulder was fractured as well. She rolled her head back and looked at Matt. He looked to be in more pain than she was. He leaned down and grabbed a fistful of her shirt and pulled her to her feet, slamming her into the wall behind her yet again, her head hit so hard that she was seeing stars.

She ignored the pain in her head and used all of her force to slam him backward, he hit the pavement hard, and didn't get back up. Blood was trickling down his neck, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he blacked out. The only thing that she was assured about was the shallow breaths coming out of his chest.

"Finish him," Cain said.

Alice shook her head. "No."

Cain sighed. "Don't you get how important you are to us? He's one thing, good for his DNA to make more soldiers in the Nemesis project, but you? You managed to bond with the T-virus even better than Addison did. You became magnificent."

"I became a freak," Alice snapped.

"No far from it," Cain said. "You're not mutation, you're evolution."

Alice heard a groan, and Matt pushed himself into a sitting position as he said, "Mutation is a part of evolution, you ignorant jackass."

Cain looked down at Matt in distaste. "Finish him, Alice."

Matt got to his feet unsteadily, and looked at her, his eyebrow raised. Alice stared back at him and said, "No."

"I understand he was your friend," Cain said, he handed her his weapon. "Make his ending quick."

Alice looked in between Matt, the others, and Cain.

"If you kill him now, I'll allow the others to come along with us."

"Alice," Matt said, he was looking at her with the same amount of determination and resignation as Rain did in the Hive when the Red Queen required her life for the code to get out of the room that they were trapped in. "Alice," he repeated, "shoot me."

She froze. "No," she said, "I'm not shooting you."

"Yes," Matt urged. "Shoot me now, kill me that way you can leave. Shoot me or we all die anyway."

"Matt!" Alice protested. "No!"

He walked closer to her, so that they were almost touching and reached down, picking up her hand he brought it to his temple and said, "Please, don't die because of me."

He removed his hand from hers. She kept the gun raised, but she spun around and fired it at Cain.

Click.

The gun was empty. Damn! Cain smiled and held up the missing clip. "All that strength and no will to use it. You're such a disappointment to me."

Her voice full of contempt, she said, "You have no idea how happy that makes me."

"Very well," Cain signed, "prepare for takeoff, he yelled at the troops and he walked toward the helicopter.

"Hey, dickwad!" Jill yelled at Cain. "I think you forgot something!"

That was when Carlos threw his combat knife at him, with his now unbound hands. Cain was too slow to dodge it completely, it rammed itself deep into his shoulder,he cried out in pain, and fell to the ground.

The reaction was almost instant. Jill, LJ and Carlos were both freed, Leon and Claire had been pulled to the side because of Cain's threat, so they were still struggling. Jill and Carlos immediately incapacitated the two nearest soldiers and seized their weapons. Both of them rolled behind the chopper, LJ and Angie were both close behind, Alice and Matt dove for cover behind some crates just in time as well. Bullets tore through the air as the soldiers retaliated.

Alice winced as the sounds got loud enough to start hurting. Matts expression mirrored her own. "What are we gonna do?" He shouted.

"Time to figure out just how good we are," Alice replied. She crouched down and crawled to the helicopter, Matt hot on her heels.

MATT:

It was official, they were screwed. Alice had a plan and he hoped to god it was going to work. He looked behind him and saw that one of the crates was filled with weapons and ammo. Immediately he dove toward it.

Of course the only gun there was a 9mm but it wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Immediately he grabbed as many clips as possible (stuffing quite a few in his pockets) and returning to the rest of them. Leon and Claire were now there. Alice was nowhere to be seen and neither were Jill and Carlos.

Matt got up and walked to the other side of the copter, walking away from his cover, he snapped the neck of the nearest guard with ease. He knocked the legs out of the man next to him and uppercut another man so hard, his neck snapped back and he flew into the air, knocking another three men down with him. Taking his 9mm out, he started shooting every soldier he could get a clear aim on, which was everyone he was able to point it at.

He saw that Jill, Carlos, and Alice were also within the ranks, wreaking havoc. Smiling at the though, Matt put a new clip in his gun and started to take aim at another guard when he saw Cain limping into the copter. Immediately he broke the nearest guard's neck and ran toward the aircraft. As he got in there he heard LJ say, "... I prefer a Cadillac," right before he punched Cain right in the nose, sending him sprawling on the floor.

"Little something I learned in grade school," LJ informed him.

Just then everyone was running into the helicopter with him. "Anyone know how to fly?" Alice demanded.

"I do," Claire said.

"Then get this thing into the air!" She demanded.

Claire and Leon both ran toward the cockpit. They disappeared behind the doors and seconds later the roar of the engine could be heard loud and clear. Another couple of seconds and they were in the air. Smiling at the thought of actually making it out, Matt sat back in his seat, feeling reasonably exhausted.

He watched as Jill picked Cain up by the collar of his shirt and handed him over to Alice.

"You have no idea what I could do for you," Cain said, "don't make a mistake."

"Shut the hell up!" Jill snapped.

"I can get you whatever you want, I can..." he trailed off as he stared into Alice's pissed off gaze.

"Killing me won't solve anything," he warned.

"No," Alice agreed, startling Matt. "But its a start!"

The door was still opened and she dragged over and held him, dangling over the city hall. "What are you going to do with me?"

"Not a damn thing," Jill said as Alice threw him out of the cargo hold.

**This is early for my early. I was so happy with the outcome that I couldn't wait! Hoped you liked it! I own nothing.**


	9. Chapter 9

MATT:

Alice looked as exhausted as Matt felt. She stumbled over, sat down beside him, and leaned her head against the wall of the copter.

"We only have about two minutes until sunrise!" Carlos yelled over the roar of the wind. "I'd buckle up, its gonna get bumpy!"

Matt leaned over and helped Angela, who was sitting on the other side of him, get buckled in before he started fumbling with his own. He looked over and saw that Alice had made no move to strap herself in. Letting go of his own, he reached over and was about to do it for her when the bomb struck. The shock wave rocked the helicopter. It hit so hard that a metal pole from the end of the helicopter flew off and was hurtling into the other direction: it was hurtling straight at Angie.

Before he could even think about doing anything, he heard Alice scream, "No!" She leaped over Matt and right in front of Angie, who was staring at the rod with wide eyes. He didn't have enough time to move before the metal hit Alice right in the chest.

"NO!" Matt shouted, grabbing Alice before she could hit the ground, he leaned back in his seat, holding her close, his fatigue completely forgotten.

"Were going down!" He heard Leon yell from the front of the helicopter, but he didn't pay attention to him, he was too busy looking at Alice. Blood was pouring out of the wound to her chest and started leaking from her mouth.

"Come on, Alice," Matt commanded, "stay with me. You've gotta stay with me!"

Her hand feebly reached for his. Immediately he grabbed her's. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she went limp.

JILL:

Matt was fighting off hysterics when Jill came over to him. "We have to jump!" she shouted in his ear.

He shook his head, looking at Alice's corpse.

"She's dead!" Jill yelled, remembering what Alice had said to her hours earlier. "Now you can join her or do as I say!"

That seemed to shake Matt out of his hysteria. He feebly let her go and said, "Come on then!" He was back in control, and he looked pissed.

Carlos, Angie, LJ, Leon, and Claire had already left, they were the last ones in the helicopter. She and him both ran out the door and they fell right into a pond, a huge waterfall beside it. The cold water bit into Jill's exposed skin as she started swimming toward the shore where the others were waiting, Matt just behind her. Seconds later a loud crash sounded as the copter hit a huge bolder.

She got out of the water and turned around to see the helicopter fall onto another rock further down, a fiery mess. She looked over and saw that Matt had his eyes closed, as if it would hide him from the horrors that just happened.

"Come on," Leon said after a moment. "We need to get going. Umbrella won't be too far behind."

Jill nodded, "We need to find a place to clean up."

"They're going to be coming for us," Carlos said.

"Their mistake," Jill said, pulling the evidence out. Morales had been smart buying a waterproof camera.

"We do have to go," Matt said grimly, "we have a lot of dead people to speak for."

"Yeah," Jill agreed. "Peyton, Morales, Nicholai..."

"Roshonda," LJ said, "Dwane."

"Alice," Matt said finaly.

"She's not dead," Angie informed him from her spot on Carlos's shoulders.

"Honey," Jill said, "she got impaled in the chest."

"I know," the girl said, "but she's not."

Jill felt her heart drop. This wasn't good. She spared a glance over at Matt and he looked determined. It was pretty obvious that he wasn't going to stop until he found her. But Jill had another thought. Another copter from Umbrella had arrived, if she was still alive beneath all of that fiery wreckage, that meant now Umbrella had her.

Jill was with Matt, those bastards weren't about to get away with taking one more life or doing one more experiment.

"We can't do anything now," Jill said gently, putting a placating hand on Matt's shoulder, "but we WILL get her back."

~two weeks later~

ALICE:

She woke up in a tube. She had no clue how she knew it was a tube, but she knew. She was in a tube full of water, smaller tubes were sticking out of her arms and abdomen, possibly giving her food, and one in her mouth, allowing her to breath. How she managed to know any of this but not know her own name was beyond her.

A man in a labcoat walked up to the glass that she was in and tapped on it gently. "Can you understand me?" his voice sounded garbled through the water.

He looked completely unfamiliar yet Alice had a feeling that she should know who he was. She blinked at him, then remembered his question. She nodded. Just then she heard a loud whirring noise and the water began to drain from the tube. Soon her head was uncovered, then her chest, then it was gone. Warm air was shot forcefully at her and within seconds she was dry. One of the lab assistants came over and removed all of the tubes from her body, and helped her get out of the confinement and into the room.

She started exploring it, eagerly looking around at the other people in labcoats, when the same man who tapped on the glass came up to her along with his assistant. He placed a labcoat over her shoulders and with a friendly voice, said, "Hello."

She nodded at him absently and continued to look around.

"Do you know your name?" He asked.

She thought long and hard but her mind came up as a blank. This troubled her greatly. "My name," she muttered. Just then a load of memories came across her mind and hit her like a movie.

She was talking to a woman with long brown and blonde hair and blue eyes, walking down a street about stealing something called a T-Virus.

She was being grabbed and pulled into a huge house by someone vaguely familiar with spiky brown hair and blue eyes.

People coming into the house with grenades and really large guns. And handcuffing the man named Matthew Addison.

Going down into an underground facility called the Hive.

Finding another man-her husband-on a train passed out.

Finding out that her and her husband, Spense weren't really married but that they were heads of security for the underground facility.

Having four of the security team be diced by a laser.

Being surrounded by zombies.

Having Matt explain that he wasn't really a cop but a member of a group of activists that were working to bring Umbrella down.

Having Spense betray them. Watching him be torn apart by something called a Licker.

Having the Red Queen demand Rain's life for a four digit access code to get them out of the room.

Getting to the train with an extremely sick Rain.

Having the licker attack the train and killing Kaplan.

Matt shooting Rain in the head.

Them getting out of the hive into the mansion.

Being separated from Matt.

Waking up in a hospital and almost snapping Matt's neck.

Being separated in a huge crowd.

Finding Jill, Morales, and Peyton.

Seeing Nemesis.

Finding Angela and meeting Leon, Claire, LJ, and Carlos.

Going to the cityhall and fighting Umbrella guards.

Going up in a helicopter and feeling glee at Cain's death.

Diving in front of a metal bar that was hurtling at Angie.

Blue eyes.

"Sir!" one of the lab technicians yelled, snapping Alice out of her reverie. He was talking to the man in charge, the same man who experimented on her and Matt in the first place.

"What," Issacs demanded, annoyed with being interrupted.

Alice answered instead of the man. "My name is Alice, and I remember everything."

She saw Issacs pale before her eyes. He nodded to one of the guards at the door to subdue her. Alice snatched the pen out of one of the technician's hands and raced toward the man, her hand darted toward his right eye, stopping within a millimeter, realizing that she didn't want to kill someone who was just doing his job. Instead she punched him clean in the jaw, sending him tumbling backward into the door.

Immediately she turned around only to have three needles pierce her chest, sending electric currents coursing through her... it tickled. She snatched them out and threw them back at the man who'd shot her, when they struck him, he wasn't being tickled, he fell to the ground, shaking uncontrollably.

She looked back over at Issacs, him she was completely okay with killing him. But she didn't. It wouldn't be fair to her or Matt. Both of them were experimented on for countless hours by this monster and Cain. Killing him would be merciful to what he deserved. She grabbed his arm and twisted it, wrenching upward and she was rewarded with a satisfactory crack. Breaking his arm was the right choice, let him feel pain now. The bastard deserved it. Unceremoniously, she shoved him forward, his head hitting the tube painfully and he fell to the floor, unmoving.

Looking around she saw that all of the other assistants and technicians had fled. They were smart.

She walked leisurely out of the lab and into the hallway of the headquarters. Facing absolutely no opposition, she walked toward the front door. Somehow she knew that she was in San Francisco, the new headquarters, newly relocated since the Raccoon City incident.

The same way she knew that she had friends waiting for her outside. She could sense one of them, Matt. For the first time since she woke up in her shower a month or so ago, she felt relaxed. Umbrella may have experimented on her and Matt, but she was going to use the weapon that she had to defeat them. She was going to make their downfall as ironic as possible, she was going to defeat them with the advantages they'd given her.

She stepped out of the facility and to her delight, saw a SUV parked exactly where she expected it to be. Walking with a purpose, she quickly made it over and got into the back seat. Jill was riding shotgun, Carlos was driving, and Matt was sitting beside her, smiling in what looked to be relief.

"Its good to have you back," he said earnestly to her.

"Its good to be back," she informed him.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and squeezed her slightly in a hug.

"It was dangerous for you guys to come," Alice said loud enough to carry to the front seat.

"We figured you were worth the risk," Carlos confided.

"That," Jill said, "and the fact that Matt would have went without us. Besides your superpowers seem to come in handy, if you still have them, that is."

"And then some," Alice muttered, but she knew that the only person who heard her was Matt. Louder, she said, "Where are the others?"

"At the hotel with Angie," Jill replied.

Alice nodded and leaned her head back against the seat.

"We need to get you some new clothes," Matt said.

"She can use some of mine and Claire's for right now," Jill replied.

That made Alice remember that she was only in a labcoat. Wrapping it even more tightly around herself, she fought off the ridiculous urge to blush. Matt, apparently realizing her discomfort, pulled off a shirt of his own, revealing a wife beater beneath it.

Well that brought back some bad memories.

"Here," he said, "you can put this on. It might help a bit."

She smiled up at him before nodding and grabbing it and throwing it over her head.

They were on the highway in no time, though Alice wasn't really paying attention to the roads at all. She was looking at everyone in the van, disturbed by the fact that everyone looked even clearer and sharper than they did before. She noticed different traits, like a faint scar on Matt's neck, Jill had about four different shades of blue in her eyes and Carlos had brown hair mixed in with his predominantly black hair.

The entire car ride was spent in silence up until they got to a shabby looking motel in what seemed to be an almost deserted town. The motel was at one time painted a blue, but the paint had faded from the harsh sun. Half of the windows were either cracked or gone completely and the front grass looked like it hadn't been cut since the beginning of summer almost four months ago. Yet the parking lot had seven or so other cars in it.

"This place looks like it should be condemned," Jill muttered, voicing Alice's thoughts.

"Its better this way," Matt said. "People rarely get the news here, they haven't seen your faces yet. Don't worry though, we'll be out of here by tomorrow."

"Come on," Carlos said, "lets get going."

She got out of the SUV and shut the door behind her, looking around. "We didn't park the car near our room," Carlos said to her as they started walking. "We figure they would probably look in the rooms that look occupied first. It would give us more of a heads up and more time to get away."

"That's smart," Alice commented.

A breeze ran through as they turned a corner of the motel, making Alice wish she had something to cover her bare legs, fall was obviously there. They turned one more corner and walked down a small hallway towards the inside of the hotel. Carlos stopped right in the middle of the narrow hall and pulled out the card for the door. Alice saw the brilliance of the strategy. She, Matt, and Angie would hear the people from Umbrella before they could get very far. The people could probably only come on one at a time depending on their weapons, this would make them easier to take out.

When the door opened, LJ, Claire, Leon, and Angie were sitting on a couch. Some cartoon was playing, a yellow sponge and a pink starfish were on the screen and keeping Angie preoccupied. LJ was asleep, his head resting on the back of the sofa, and Claire and Leon were talking quietly. As soon as Alice stepped into the room, Claire and Leon stopped talking, Angie turned her head away from the television, and LJ's head snapped up.

Claire smiled, and said, "Alice, you're alive!" She and Leon both got up from the couch and walked over, smiling brightly.

"Its great to see you," Leon said sincerely, "maybe Matt'll stop moping now."

"Moping?" Alice questioned, sending a questioning glance at Matt.

"It was not moping," Matt countered defensively. "I was as concerned as everyone else in this room!"

Carlos actually snorted before patting him in the back. "Okay. Jill, you wanna give Alice some clothes? She's probably freezing in what she has on now."

Angie walked over and gave Alice a hug. "I never really got to thank you," she said quietly, "you saved my life."

Alice hugged her back and said, "Don't mention it, kiddo. Why don't you go back and watch your show, it looks interesting."

Angie beamed and nodded. Walking over to the floor in front of the TV, she plopped down, looking content.

Jill walked back into the only bedroom and pulled a small black suitcase out from under the king sized bed. She plopped it down on the neatly made sheets, which caused dust to explode into the room. "You haven't slept on this?" Alice questioned.

"Please," Jill said, unzipping the case and rummaging through its contents. "The floor's more comfortable."

She threw Alice a plain brown t-shirt and a pair of faded blue jeans. "We're going down to McDonald's, which is right down the road... I don't think you wanna go. Its loud, crowded and noisy. I know you just got outta that hell, but if you want you can..."

"No, no, no," Alice said quickly. "I'm good. I'm not really hungry anyways."

Jill was about to say something when Alice heard something that sounded like gagging. "Good god, you're burning up!" Claire's voice permeated through the walls.

"He's been infected!" LJ's voice cried out.

Matt's weak, quavering voice came next. "I haven't been bitten, dumbass! Zombies don't consider me food!"

"Matthew Addison!" Claire's stern voice came in again. "Language!"

"Sorry," he said weakly.

Alice frowned, perplexed. "I'll check on him," Jill said. "You go ahead and get dressed."

When Jill left the room, Alice hurriedly stripped out of Matt's shirt, and the labcoat, putting on the clothes that Jill had given her, already feeling better having more covering her body.

"LJ," Jill's voice commanded, "get some ice."

Stepping out of the room, Alice saw that Matt was hunched over in a separate room, probably the bathroom, Claire, Jill, and Carlos all surrounded him, concerned. Leon was staying with Angie, assuring her that Matt was fine. LJ was walking toward the front door.

Alice walked over to the bathroom as Claire said, "It could be anything. Maybe you ate something bad last night."

"Impossible," Carlos said, "he's barely ate anything in the past two weeks."

Another moment as Matt released more contents from his stomach. Then he said, "Not only that, my immune system is too powerful for me to get sick because of food poisoning."

"Then what?" Claire demanded, obviously using agitation to mask her concern.

Another moment as Matt violently regurgitated again. He rose unsteadily. "I don't know."

"You need to rest," Claire said, going into mother mode. "Please don't be as stubborn as Chris with this."

"Not possible," Jill said, "your brother one time showed up to work with pneumonia. I had to force him to get medical attention."

"Don't worry," Matt said. "I'm fine."

"Bull," Alice said, speaking for the first time.

"What do you mean?" Matt snapped.

"LJ wasn't far off," Alice said, looking at him closely.

The four of them looked at Alice in shock. Carlos responded first, "Alice, do you mean-"

"He's not going to turn," Alice said, "but he was infected with the virus after all, a lower dosage which explains why it took so long for it to hit him, but its still the T-virus. The virus takes a toll on you before it starts bonding with you completely."

"How do you know all this?" Matt questioned, looking at her and leaning heavily against the doorway.

"Experienced it myself when we got separated in Raccoon," Alice said. "Not important at the moment, though, you need to rest."

Matt not being in any shape to argue, meekly nodded and started inching toward the couch.

LJ walked back into the room, a bowl full of ice in his hands. Alice grabbed it from him and said, "You guys go ahead to McDonald's. Angie needs to eat."

"Are you gonna be okay here by yourself?" Leon asked, walking up.

"Of course," Alice said, "I'm trained to take care of mortal wounds, I can handle this."

"Is he going to be alright?" Angie asked, concerned.

"I'm going to be fine," Matt said, failing to sound assuring from the couch.

"Sleep!" Claire snapped at him threateningly.

Alice could almost feel Matt cringe.

"See you guys in a little while," Carlos said as the six of them filed out of the room, and shut the door. The newly found silence was cut off by a groan of discomfort made by Matt. Alice walked over to the sink, picked up a paper cup that the hotel must have given them when they rented the room. She filled it with ice then put water in it.

"Here," she said, handing him the cup, "ice water."

Nodding in appreciation, Matt grabbed the cup and gulped it down. That action seemed to rob him of any strength that he'd managed to reserve. His head hit the worn pillow and he was breathing heavily, his head covered with sweat. "Good god!" He panted.

"Don't worry," Alice said, getting on her knees beside his head, running her fingers through his hair, it was the only comforting gesture she could think of. "You'll feel better soon."

"I hope so," he muttered.

"Alright," Alice said quietly, "you need to sleep."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Matt said, he rolled on his side so that he was facing her, and closed his eyes, drifting off into sleep as Alice ran her fingers through his hair.

**There's an Alice/Matt moment for all of my fellow shippers! Warning: I have never read extinction I know I'm a bad person, but I couldn't find the book. All I know for a fact is Jill got separated from them and Angie was killed while Alice was under the influence of Umbrella... I THINK. So things are gonna be different anyway, but still, sorry if I screw something up. I own nothing.**


	10. Chapter 10

ALICE:

Alice heard the others before they came in. Their footsteps were hurried, she didn't hear them talking, which was strange considering the fact that they just took a nine year old girl to a fast food restaurant. Carlos was the first one in, he had a forced calm expression on his face, Angie was holding his hand, her expression was one of confusion. The others followed right behind, their expressions forced into the careful calm mask that Carlos had on.

Alice sent them a wordless question which was answered by LJ. "Pack yo shit, we gettin the hell outta here."

Claire glared at LJ, who took a cautious step back. "Sorry," he said sheepishly.

Alice was up in an instant, as Jill ran down the hall, Carlos right behind her, probably going to grab the luggage.

"Leon," Alice said, "help me with Matt. And are they here yet?"

"No," Leon reported, walking over as Alice gently shook Matt awake. "We heard it off Carlos's car radio, they're on their way we have five minutes or so."

"Alright," Alice said, "Claire, LJ, take Angie to the car, Leon can you handle Matt?"

Leon nodded as Matt got into a sitting position on the couch. "What are you thinking?" Matt asked sharply, he seemed to be getting better.

"You guys need some getaway time," Alice said as if it was the most obvious answer in the world... because it was.

"We just got you out of the facility!" Matt protested, "You can't!"

"Cant what?" Jill said, running out of the room, two suitcases in her hands, Carlos was behind her, carding another two as well.

"We don't have time," Alice said, "get to the car, I'll meet you in the next town over."

"You aren't doing this by yourself!" Matt protested.

"You aren't in any condition to fight," Alice informed him calmly.

"Alice-"

He cut himself off and she heard the reason why as well as he did. It was too late. She ran outside and over to the car. "They're here," she said to Claire who was with Angie in the middle seat.

"What do we do?" LJ demanded.

"Get back in the room," Alice instructed.

Seconds later they'd filed out of the van and they were running back to the room. Alice saw the all too familiar black uniformed people walking into a room, on the other side. There were more of them out there too.

Alice ran into the room and saw that Matt was up walking around. He seemed only slightly disoriented, and that would probably go away within seconds.

"Come on," Alice said to the people following behind her. "LJ, Claire, Angie, Matt, get into the back bedroom."

A roar of protest met her ears. "Hell no," Matt said, "I'm perfectly able to fight!"

Claire looked as if she was about to start protesting as well. "Look!" Alice snapped. "There's no way that we're gonna be able to completely stop them. Someone needs to be in there to protect Angie."

Long and painful seconds of silence went by.

"Fine," Claire sighed. She grabbed Angie's hand and walked into the room, LJ behind her.

Matt, on the other hand, was adamant as ever. He stood stalk still, arms crossed, all looks of weariness gone from his eyes. "Alright," Alice said, "come on."

"Alice," Matt said.

"Yes?" she asked.

"Here," he reached under the couch and pulled out a long box. "You might like these."

Alice opened the box curiously, wondering what kind of gift Matt would be giving her at a time like this. Two long knives were laying on a piece of paper. "You seem fond of them, we, Leon and I, saw them at a weapons shop a week or so back, so we picked them up."

"Very thoughtful," Jill said impatiently. "You two can talk later."

"Lets hope so," Alice said. "They're here."

Two seconds later the door busted down. "Hello, boys," Alice drawled lazily, the knives whirled in her hands rapidly, resembling helicopter blades.

The guards faltered for a moment in hesitation, that was all the incentive that the four of them needed to attack.

Matt managed to grab the leader of the soldiers before he could fire his M16. He discarded the weapon, broke the man's neck and threw him into the other men at the door. All of them fell back, crashing painfully into the door.

She heard Leon whistle. "Matt," he said, "I'm glad you're on my side." Alice looked down the hall and saw that there was no one else coming down the hall.

"We should get them while they're separated," Jill said softly.

"Agreed," Alice said, briskly walking out of the door. She closed her eyes and listened. Four people breaking down a door the next hallway down. Smiling, she strolled down the hallway, and straight into the next.

The room that they were in was the only door that was open. Alice walked over to the entrance and set to work. The four Umbrella soldiers were doing their damndest to find them, tearing the entire hotel room to shreds. She walked up to the closest one and snapped his neck silently. He fell to the ground and she was running at the next closest one when they figured something was off. The man closest to her looked at her and grabbed at his gun from his holster just as Alice stabbed him in the neck and hit him in the temple with the hilt of one of her knifes, an instant killing blow.

The other two opened fire on her, but strangely their guns didn't seem to work. Alice kept over their heads, came down behind them, reaching out, she broke one guys neck and brought the legs out from the other, both fell to the ground at the same time. A well aimed kick assured Alice that the other man wouldn't be getting up again.

Turning, she left the room, actually looking forward to testing her new powers on the jackasses that attempted to hurt the people she cared about.

JILL:

After Alice ran out of the hotel room, Jill ran into the bedroom and had two Desert Eagles and a pistol pointing at her chest. 'So this is how Matt felt!'

"Look," Jill said quickly. "We're splitting up-"

"I'm taking Angie!" Matt called from behind her.

Jill turned around and was silent for a minute. He was easily the strongest out of any of them including Alice, one of the best fighters and he seemed to bond as closely with Angie as she had. "Alright," Jill said, "go ahead, Angie."

Angie ran forward and grabbed Matt's awaiting hand as they walked out together. "Let's go," Jill prompted before walking out the door herself.

Another car had shown up, and was just about to park. Jill shrugged, might as well take them out before they became a problem. Silently, she stalked forward. As the soldiers got out of the car, she took out her Beretta and decided to practice some of the head shots she was so famous for. There were five men on the squad, she managed to take two down in the first second and a half, placing a bullet in between their eyes, they fell unceremoniously to the ground. The other three were trained by Umbrella so of course they had their guns out and were looking around for who just killed their comrades. She took down the man furthest from her in the confusion.

The remaining two now knew her position, but that wouldn't matter. She ran out, taking them both by surprise, and executed a move that Chris taught her. Taking one man by the neck, she kicked her leg out and swept it under the other man's two feet, he lost his balance and went tumbling to the ground, his breath knocked out of him. The man who was in her choke hold attempted to elbow her, but the lack of oxygen made him slow and clumsy. She dodged his blow and used her other hand to twist his neck, creating a loud snapping noise. She let him go and he limply fell to the ground. The remaining survivor was starting to squirm, his breath coming back. Jill ended his attempt to grab his gun by a powerful kick to the chin.

'Alright,' she thought, walking away from the soldiers. 'Next unlucky bastard come right up.'

LEON:

Jill ran out after Matt and Angie. LJ muttered something about kicking Umbrella's ass as he walked out that just left him and Claire.

"We should probably split up," she said.

"The last time we attempted that, I had some seriously close calls with some zombies, and it took Matt to find you. How about we stick together? Besides, you're the first person I helped on my first and last night on the job, I figure that I might as well continue and you're not exactly that bad of a fighter yourself."

Claire smiled softly. "Okay, let's go."

They walked out of the room and toward the front of the hotel, figuring that they had to start somewhere. Black guards were all in the front office. Leon saw with a high level of fury that the attendants were on the ground, a bullet in each of their foreheads. One of the guards was turning in their direction. Panicking, Leon grabbed Claire's hand and dove into the bushes beside them. They rolled to a painful stop, Claire on top of him, her fingernails digging into his chest in panic and surprise.

After a moment their position became painfully awkward. Claire still didn't move, she may not have known what was going on, but she knew that Leon wasn't about to pull a stunt like he just did without a damn good reason.

"What happened?" she breathed, loosening her grip on his shirt.

"A man almost saw us," he replied. "We can fight well enough, but I'm not suicidal."

"Agreed," Claire agreed. "So what do we do?"

"Find Alice and tell her that a large group is at the front," Leon replied.

"What if they leave?" Claire demanded.

"They won't," Leon replied.

"You don't know that," Claire snapped.

"What would you propose?" Leon questioned, knowing full well that he wasn't going to like the answer.

"Split up," Claire said. "You stay and I'll find Alice, you can fight better than me, we both know that's true, so if the soldiers come out, you'll be able to figure something out."

Leon didn't hesitate, "No."

"Yes," Claire said, "we don't have much time. I'll be fine."

"You'll be fine?" Leon echoed. "You could get hurt, shot... killed." His stomach filled with dread and he felt overly protective of her.

Claire tensed up, obviously prepared to spring up and run. "I'll be back before you know it." She smiled trying to lighten the mood. "What's wrong, Kennedy? Losing your nerve, or do you have no faith in me?"

"Damn it, Claire," Leon sighed. "You'd better come back."

"I plan on it," she murmured, darting out of her hiding spot and running in the direction of muffled grunts and groans.

Leon hid inside of the bushes, nursing his bruised ego as he felt like a total coward.

CLAIRE:

Her breath was still coming out evenly as she ran into Alice who was strolling easily out of a hotel room, two hallways away from Leon. The only sign of her recent fight was the small amount of blood on her knives. "Alice," she said. "We found a load of them."

"What?" Alice said sharply. "How many?"

"Twelve at least," she answered promptly.

Alice frowned and she was quiet as a mouse for a moment. "They're at the front of the hotel? Office?"

Claire nodded. "Let's go!"

"Damn!" Alice cursed. "We've gotta go!"

Claire had no idea what was wrong and Alice wasn't giving any answers, so she figured that she'd find out momentarily. They made it to the front of the hotel seconds later, crouching carefully as they looked. "Oh damn," Claire muttered.

They had Matt, Angie, and Leon in the room. Matt was shouting something that she couldn't hear, Angie was being held at gunpoint which seemed to be enough to keep the other two at bay until...

The soldier that was pointing the gun at Angie flew backward, hitting the glass wall with such force, that blood poured out of his head as he fell to the floor.

Alice straightened up and started running toward the entrance, Claire only half a second behind her. "Did you do that?" Claire demanded as three other people went flying. No one else had moved in the room, apparently in shock.

"No," Alice replied as they got to the door, just in time to see Matt move into action. He stepped forward and brought his fist down on the man in front of him before he even had a chance to defend himself. He snatched his other hand out, grabbed the man beside him by the throat, and flung him into three other guards. Alice walked behind a second guard and decapitated him before he even had time to turn around. Leon and Claire managed to take down one each, Claire with her 9mm and Leon got one in a powerful chokehold and snatched his hand up jerkily, snapping his neck.

One man was left and what Claire saw made her blood run cold. He was backing away from a slowly advancing Matt, Angela in his arms, a pistol pointed at the small girl's temple. She was crying in fear and for Matt to help her. "Come any closer and I swear you'll have to clean her damned brains up from the floor!"

Angela screamed in fear. "Matt! Please!"

The look that Matt was giving the soldier was enough to scare Claire, and make her thankful that she was on the receiving end. His eyes resembled icecubes, and he was literally shaking from anger and rage.

"Back. Back the fuck off!

For some reason that seemed to be a bad choice of words for the man to use, it was also Matt's breaking point. Quicker than anyone had time to retaliate to Matt darted forward, punching the man in the jaw hard enough for him to go a couple of inches into the air and slam back into the window, five feet away.

He slumped to the ground but Matt didn't seemed to be finished with him. He ran forward and started beating the man into a bloody pulp, a result of a frenzied rage, punching the man where ever he possibly could. Claire heard bones give away, and eventually she could see where blood started splattering on him.

"Matt!" Alice said, "he's dead!" Alice didn't get any response.

"Take Angie outside," Alice ordered, walking toward her friend.

"What's wrong with Matt?" Angie asked when they were a safe distance from the front.

Leon was silent and carefully looking around in case anymore soldiers came around, so Claire took that as a signal for her to think of an answer even though she had no idea. "He's angry with the man that had the gun pointed at you," Claire said gently.

"But he snapped his neck on the first punch. I heard it, doesn't it mean that he was dead the first time Matt hit him?"

"It does," Claire said, not wanting to lie to the girl.

"So why did he keep hitting him?" Angie asked. God this was one inquisitive child!

"I don't know," Claire said. "But don't worry, Alice'll fix everything."

ALICE:

She slowly walked over to Matt, who was still furiously hitting the man. "Matt," she said when she was close enough to him, "Matt stop."

He still didn't register her words. Not knowing what to do, she got in front of him and put her hand under his chin and forcibly pulled it up so he would look at her. Immediately he stopped punching the guard and looked at her, his enraged expression turned to one of shock, fear, and shame. "Wh... wh... Alice, I..."

She grabbed his hand and pulled him up. "Its okay, Matt," she answered.

He shook his head. "No, I... I lost control, damn it, I..."

He trailed off again, he was confused and it was apparent that he had as much of an idea of what happened as she did, which was not one at all. Alice wrapped her arms around him in a comforting embrace. "You didn't do anything wrong," she murmured to him softly.

"Yes, I-"

"Nothing wrong at all," Alice repeated firmly.

"Guys," a voice behind them said, it was Carlos. "We need to get the hell out of here. Police won't be far away, but Umbrella should get here first." His eyes swept around the room at the state of the bodies, finally resting on the broken form of the man who Matt beat to death. He winced slightly, but said nothing.

"Let's go then," Alice said, "we're gonna need a new ride."

"I know," Carlos said, "that's how they tracked us in the first place."

~thirty minutes later~

They were sitting in a minivan riding down the interstate. Leon had rented the car from a car rental place down the road. They were heading to Detroit, a heavily populated city, where they would blend in well with a crowd. Matt hadn't said so much as two words while they'd been on the road. Leon and Carlos were in the front seat, Claire, was in the back. LJ, Angie, and Jill were riding behind them in another car, a Charger that LJ had picked up. Considering that it was about four o'clock in the morning, Carlos and Claire were asleep. Matt was too tensed to be asleep, and Alice was too worried to even think about sleeping.

"Leon," Alice said softly, "pull over at the next gas station. You've gotta be dead beat. I'll drive."

"I'm fine," Leon shrugged. "Get some rest."

"I don't need any," Alice replied. "I rested when you guys went out to eat. So pull over, I know you want to sleep."

The poor cop must have been tired, because he pulled off at the next truck stop, LJ following him.

It turns out that it was a good thing they stopped. Angie was complaining about having to go to the bathroom, and just about everybody wanted a drink. As they walked into the store, Alice heard a TV playing on a low volume...

"Dozens of Umbrella employees were killed in a massacre in Paradise Inn on the outskirts of San Francisco. Authorities think that former Umbrella employee, Carlos Olivera and former Raccoon City S.T.A.R.S. agent, Jill Valentine were apart of the murders. No witnesses were found, but if you do have any information on the murders or the whereabouts of the two suspects, contact your local authorities."

"In other news, ruthless murders have started happening in the Midwest, in the cities nearest to what remains of Raccoon City, the sight of the massive Nuclear Meltdown, just two weeks ago. Some officials believe that the radiation has leaked out and causes the people to lose their minds and go insane."

Alice had heard enough. It felt like a fist had clenched over her heart and attempted to pull it into her throat. She thought, well more like she hoped, that the explosion had stopped with the bombing of Raccoon City.

"Damn," she said under her breath.

"What be wrong?" LJ asked.

"Not right now," Alice said.

Shrugging, LJ walked off toward the snacks. Not seeing anything remotely appealing in the store, Alice walked out and saw that Matt had walked out before her and he was sitting in the passenger seat. "I figured I'd move up here, Leon saw exactly what I did and I know that I wouldn't want to sleep beside someone who was capable of doing something so insane."

"You..." Alice trailed off, shaking her head. She didn't want to argue with him in front of Angie. Instead, she walked up to him and took his hand softly in hers. "I'm not afraid of you. Carlos and Claire were knocked out in the car with you there, Claire witnessed what happened first hand, and Leon volunteered to drive in the same car with you."

"Alice," Matt muttered. "I don't know... maybe I'm too dangerous."

"Don't worry," Alice said. "You aren't too dangerous. You're a good person and you care about Angie, you were angry at the man for putting a gun to her head."

"What happens when I get angry with someone who annoys me, or wakes me up, or if I get into an argument? I can't just beat one of you guys into a pulp because I'm not happy."

"You know there's a difference between being pissed at LJ for saying something stupid and being pissed at an Umbrella thug for threatening Angie."

Matt looked up at her. She could tell that he wasn't convinced. She couldn't say anymore however, the others were starting to come out of the store, she didn't want them to worry about anything just yet.

"Come on," Jill said yawning. "I don't wanna be driving too much longer." She hopped into the Charger and Alice got into the driver's seat of the van. Carlos, Claire, and Leon were both in the car. Leon gave Claire the whole middle section to sleep on, while he and Carlos laid the back seat of the van down and fell asleep that way.

She pulled out of the station and back onto the road in silence. Tension was thick in the air. She was worried about Matt, the outbreak, what they were going to do with Angie. Especially Angie, if they didn't stop the outbreak, how well would she and any other child fair in a zombie infested world. Hell only eight people, three of them infected, made it out of an entire city full of thousands of people.

"I trust you caught what the television was saying," Matt murmured.

It was almost as if he could read her mind. Alice set the van on cruise and sighed almost inaudibly. "Of course I heard. I thought the virus had been contained, sealed off from everything else when they put the damned walls up and nuked the place."

"Don't feel bad," Matt said. "This was the first time I've heard of it either."

"Do the others know?" Alice questioned.

"I don't think so... I doubt they were able to hear the television. Jill has sharp hearing though. If anyone could hear it would have been her."

"Hear what?" The semi-drousy voice of Claire Redfield came from behind her.

"Nothing important," Alice bluffed. "Not yet at least. We'll explain everything when we stop for some rest in a couple of hours."

Claire nodded, yawning widely before sitting up in her seat. "Good, I'm hungry."

She looked at the next sign and saw that it said they were entering the state of Colorado. "Alright," Alice stated, "we can stop. We just got to Colorado. I'm beat and I'm sure that everyone would appreciate a nice rest."

Alice got off the next exit and found a small motel to rest. Days Inn.

Everyone waited in the car as Claire walked into the front office with Claire. A few seconds later LJ did the same.

A few more minutes later, Claire and Leon walked out again. "Here," Claire yawned, throwing Alice a key. "You, me, Jill, and Angie have room 206. Matt, Carlos, LJ, and Leon have 210."

"Couldn't get them together?" Alice questioned.

"It isn't that," Claire replied. "We figured that if we came in smaller groups, we wouldn't be as memorable."

"Good idea," Alice replied. "Let's go."

She didn't know when she'd slept better. Matt took watch in the other room, insisting that he wasn't tired. As big of a lie as that probably was, Alice had to admit that she was tired, and that the days events had taken their toll. She needed rest.

~Four hours later~

MATT:

They had to plan for what to do next, there was no choice. Everyone had woken up and, went down stairs and gotten Angie something to eat, before settling on the beds and the meeting began.

"Look," Alice said, "there's something that Matt and I heard last night in the convenience store back in Navada."

Everyone looked at her intently. She remained silent, either trying to form a way of telling them, or not really knowing what to say. So Matt decided to speak up. "You know the explosion back in Raccoon?"

Everyone nodded. "What about it?" Carlos inquired.

"Well there was a news show on in the store and we heard them talking about the cities around it. Ruthless killings, people going insane... they say its from the radiation. The infection wasn't stopped in Raccoon, its spreading."

**Hey people who read, I hope you enjoyed! I'm updating cause I kinda need to be cheered up and nothing like reviews to do the trick! I own nothing, but I wish I did. **

**Bigfan: He's more or less like Alice.**


	11. Chapter 11

MATT:

"What can we do?" Leon asked.

"I don't really know if we can do _anything_." Alice replied.

"We can't just sit around and let this happen!" Claire exclaimed.

"Claire," Matt cut in. "We can't just go around and randomly start shooting people in the head. We'll go to jail for murder. How are we any good in jail? What we need to do is what we were doing in the first place."

"What?" Claire demanded mockingly, "Run?"

"I know you want to help," Jill said gently. "But first off, your brother would brutally murder me if you got killed. And honestly, we can't fight this head on. I agree with Matt."

"Me too," Carlos said. "We're the only people other than Chris and a few others that know what is going on enough to stop these assholes. Getting locked up is the wrong answer."

"People are being infected," Leon sighed. "Its going to spread rapidly. Look what happened to Raccoon over night!"

"I know," Jill said. "But maybe once they see what's going on, they'll take the advice that Alice gave them. Aim for the head."

Everyone was silent for a moment. Alice clapped her hands together and sighed. "The question is: what do we do? Its obvious that we can't do this forever."

"That's a reasonably good question." Matt agreed.

"We could go to Europe," Claire volunteered.

"The infection will probably spread there as well," Carlos reasoned.

"I know some people that could help," LJ said. "We could disappear, fake ids, the works."

"No," Jill said quickly. "I'm still a cop, remember?"

"We could keep going," Carlos said. "Get to Detroit. Disappear for a while, without breaking the law, and see what happens after that."

Matt thought for a moment. "I can contact Aaron Vricella when we get there. He's one of the people that founded the organization that I'm a part of."

"Okay," Alice said, "sounds like a plan, but if you want out, here's your chance."

"I'm in," Claire declared. "I've witnessed hell, and Umbrella needs to be shown exactly what hell is, and they put Chris in danger. No one messes with my family."

Leon looked around for a moment and said, "I'm doing this so we don't live in a zombie infested world."

Jill smiled and said, "I've seen people I care about and know die, and those bastards lost me my credibility. I'm out for revenge!"

"They made me come off my vacation to go to Raccoon City, where they left me for dead," I'm not about to let up on that lightly."

"Well," LJ sighed. "I actually feel like I'm doing something worthwhile with my time. Besides, they have to pay for Dwane and Roshonda."

"I'm in," Angie said, "the company that killed daddy needs to pay."

"Okay," Matt said, "let's go!"

~two weeks later~

CLAIRE:

They'd been in Detroit for two weeks or so. The best move that they'd made in a long time. They rented a couple of apartments and waited, that was all they could do. Matt had sent word to his friend in New York, who'd yet to reply.

They'd managed to avoid suspicion from everybody. Claire, Leon, LJ, and Jill pretended to be buddies going to the nearest university, so they all rented an apartment together. Alice and Matt pretended to be a married couple with Angie as their child, Carlos was Alice's brother.

Smiling as she went over their brilliant cover up job, Claire sat at the kitchen table, soaking in the sun, and enjoying the view of the second story which overlooked a bit of forest which was turning different colors.

"I wish it could be like this all the time," someone sighed from behind her.

Jumping from the unexpected noise, she turned around and saw Leon looking at her from the back of the kitchen, by the small living room. He smiled and walked forward, sitting beside her at the at the table. "Its peaceful, and perfect. Nothing's wrong."

Claire nodded earnestly, "I know what you mean, but that's not reality. The reality is that there are things wrong in the world, and that we have to face them regardless of whether or not we want to."

She looked away from the window and over at Leon. He was staring at her a mixture of awe and respect. "I get what you mean," he replied softly.

"You do?" she asked.

He nodded, "And I completely agree, its just that, regardless of what's going to happen soon, shouldn't we make the best of the time that we have left?"

Claire had a distinct feeling that he wasn't talking about the view anymore. She looked away and said,"Yeah, we should."

"I'm glad to hear it," Leon said. She felt his hand pass over hers. He took it gently in his as if he was afraid that she was going to wrench hers away. When she didn't make any movement to do so, he held it more firmly.

"Leon," Claire breathed, turning to look at him.

"What is it?" he asked, concern splayed across his features.

"I'm scared. What if something happens to you? I don't think I could live with myself."

"I'm scared too," Leon admitted quietly, he leaned slightly closer so he was looking her in the eyes. "But we'll make it. We've done good so far."

"Hey," Carlos said loudly from the next room, "the Addisons are coming!" That had been a ongoing joke between the group, much to the chagrin of Matt and Alice, Angie on the other hand seemed oblivious to the teasing.

Regardless of the teasing tone he had, his predictions were proved true two seconds later when the door opened and Matt's annoyed voice sounded. "Really?"

She heard Carlos snort as Alice said, "We're going down to the park with Angie today, remember?"

Leon nodded. "Let's go then."

Claire smiled as Angie looked around at the adults in anticipation. "I haven't been to the park in years. It was always too hard for daddy to move around in."

Claire smiled at and said, "My favourite was always the monkey bars."

"Please," Leon snorted and got up, offering Angie his hand as they walked out the door, "the twisty slides were better!"

ISSACS:

Dr. Samuel Isaacs was in a reasonably good mood. Everything was going to plan, exactly to plan, which was a first since that idiot, Caine had been in power. That was one great service that Project Alice had done for the corporation, killing that moron. Project Matthew may have been less helpful in that sense, but his blood on the other hand was very helpful.

The chip that he'd implanted in Abernathy's brain was now able to connect to one of their satellites, which would give him complete control over her motor functions, and hopefully in time her thoughts. Now all he had to do was wait. His contact said that they were in Detroit. As soon as the satellite lined up with the city, he establish a connection. It would happen at 2:40 in the afternoon. He had an hour.

"Enjoy your last bit of freedom," he murmured quietly.

CARLOS:

The park was deserted. Strange considering that it was almost two o'clock on a Saturday. He shrugged inwardly, it was more room for Angie to play. He looked at her and smiled, she insisted that she wanted some black cargo pants like Carlos's, she had the miniature combat boots on, a dark blue shirt (matching Jill's) and her hair was up in a ponytail like Alice's. She was too cute.

"Alright, Claire," Leon laughed. "You like the money bars so much, show us what you got!"

Angie, who'd been walking beside him, ran off toward the playground, an actual laugh coming from her. That was a first.

"You're on, Kennedy! If I can still do them, you buy me lunch!" Claire announced.

Carlos shook his head. There really wasn't a difference in who bought what considering that it all came from the same spot.

But he still heard Leon shout, "Its a deal!"

He looked over and saw with amusement that Claire was at the top of the platform and had her hands on the bars. It was awkward with her height, but she managed to crouch down and let her feet hang as she propelled herself forward.

"Son of a bitch," he heard Leon mutter, who'd walked over to stand beside him. "She's gonna do it."

"I could have told you that," Carlos laughed.

Claire reached the end and jumped down, landing nimbly on her feet. Smugly, she turn around and bowed, flourishing her hands. Leon and Angie both laughed while Carols and LJ shook their heads.

Angie wanted to try the bars, but she couldn't hang on enough to propel herself forward to the next bar, so Matt walked forward, saying, "Want some help?"

"Yes please!" she shouted.

Matt out his hands out so she could put her feet on them, Carlos saw him push up on her a little bit, probably supporting most of her weight effortlessly. Those Umbrella bastards had messed him up as bad as Alice, that didn't stop Matt from laughing as Angie and he walked forward.

Carlos patted Leon on the back before saying loudly, "Why don't you go down the 'twisty slide?'

"Yeah!" Claire said from beside Alice and Jill, who were all watching Angie and Matt with amusement. "Go on!"

"Alright, Redfield, you and Olivera are ganging up on me, guess I don't have a choice." Leon replied.

"I know," Claire said smugly.

Leon ran forward bounding up the black stairs, and walked forward to the slide. "This is small! If I get stuck you're helping me outta here!"

Carlos snorted. And Alice said, "If you get stuck we'll all be too busy laughing to be if much help."

"No kiddin," LJ said from his bench.

"Well go on!" Jill jeered.

Leon smirked at them before grabbing the top of the slide and projecting himself through the opening. Two seconds later,he came out of the bottom, landing ungracefully on his back, and groaned. "It was more fun when I was Angie's age."

~Thirty minutes later~

ANGIE:

Angie had managed to get every adult (including LJ) to admit their favourite ride and attempt it. Alice's was the jungle gym, Matt's had been the tire swing, Carlos's had been the monkey bars, and LJ's had been the regular swing. She got the grown ups to smile and laugh, something that she had rarely seen in the past two weeks. She didn't like it when people were sad, it reminded her too much of when she was little and she had to go to the doctor's office.

She'd managed to snag a ride on Matt's shoulders when they left the park looking down at Matt's watch she saw the time was 2:39. She'd been at the park longer than what she thought. She saw that the second hand had reached the twelve as Matt shut her door. That was when everything went wrong. She saw Alice go all stiff for a moment before she walked over to Matt.

"Something wrong, Alice?" He asked nervously.

"Maybe she wants to give her husband a kiss," LJ quipped.

That was way off. Before Matt had the chance to answer LJ, Alice punched him in the chest so hard she heard his ribs crack, and he flew backward into a tree. His head slumped forward, and he made no effort to get up.

Silence.

Everyone stood still, shocked beyond belief. Angie inhaled sharply as she watched from the car. Not a second later the shock broke out, and Angie saw a familiar red and white logo flicker in Alice's eyes.

"Oh hell," Leon breathed, apparently she hadn't been the only one to see it.

"Alice?" Jill asked cautiously.

Alice didn't answer, she simply moved. She slammed a hand into Leon's chest, sending him tumbling backward, before landing on the ground. While she was attacking Leon, he leg already jumped up and kicked Claire in the side, knocking her into the closest tree, sending her down, Jill, Carlos, and LJ all rushed her but Alice barely blinked. She did a graceful flip over their heads and landed behind them, she brought her arm around and punched Jill in the side with the side of her fist, sending her sprawling on the ground not moving. Carlos and LJ were quickly disposed of, she grabbed Carlos's wrist as he attempted to land a blow to her side, and slammed the hand back into his chest, knocking him into LJ, both of turn hitting the tree behind them, their heads slumped.

The entire fight lasted no more than fifteen seconds. Angie was glued to the spot in fear. The only thing that she knew for sure was that Matt wasn't dead; she could still sense him. Alice hopped in the same car that Angie was in, immediately Angie made a move to get out and the car doors locked.

"Alice!" Angie shrieked. "Alice why are you doing this?"

There was no answer as they sped away from their friends.

"They're your friends!" Angie tried to reason. "You love them! Why, Alice, why?"

Still there was no answer. 'This isn't Alice,' Angie reasoned to herself. 'This is daddy's company! They killed daddy, they're murderers!'

The ride seemed to take years, and Angie was terrified. This made Raccoon City seem like a walk in the park. Finally Alice stopped right in front of a huge building with Umbrella's symbol splayed at the very top. Two seconds later, a man in a black uniform, like Carlos's the night she met him, walked to her door, opened it, and dragged her out. Holding her shoulder tightly, he pulled her inside and toward an older man in a white labcoat.

"Project Alice," the man said, "nice of you to show up."

"Stop it!" Angie demanded. "Bring Alice back!"

The man looked at Angie in distaste, "We don't need her, Alice, kill her."

There was no emotion in Alice's gaze as she took a small gun from the man in the black uniform that was holding her. She pointed the gun at Angie, right in between the eyes. She looked up at Alice pleadingly, but it was useless. She closed her eyes tightly, preparing herself for death.

MATT:

Oh God he was in pain! He opened his eyes and looked around. Everyone was out cold as well. There was only one vehicle left, which meant that Alice was gone.

'Angie!' Matt's mind screamed. She took the car that he'd put Angie in! The symbol for Umbrella had flickered in her eyes, that could only mean... damn he had to get moving.

Not bothering to even wake someone else up, he jumped into the car and drove off. He made it to Umbrella in record time, quite possibly earning about a hundred fingers and fifty car horns, but he couldn't care less. He stopped the car right in front of the building and raced inside. As soon as he got through the door, his heart almost exploded.

A man in a black suit was restraining Angie as Alice pointed a 9mm at her face. Issacs was standing by, watching.

Matt didn't give anyone time to react, he dashed forward and knocked Angie out of the way, feeling the bullet that was meant for her slice into his arm..he barely registered the pain in the adrenaline rush he was experiencing. "Get out of sight," be ordered in her ear quietly before jumping to his feet and did something that he swore he'd never do again, rammed into Alice, sending her flying backward.

He heard the one guard that Issacs had with him remove his gun, which he never hand time to use. Matt grabbed the man's wrist and snapped it as if it was a twig, swung one of his legs out and brought the man to the ground. He turned around to be intercepted by Alice. She placed another blow to his already tender ribs. He actually groaned in pain before he grabbed one of her arms and swung his leg under hers, making her flip sideways colliding with the ground hard enough for even her to break something, she didn't move after that. Immediately

Matt walked over to a scared Issacs. "You filthy bastard," he growled menacingly. "Couldn't give us a damn break, could you?"

He grabbed the doctor by the front of his shirt and lifted him off his feet. A remote fell from one of his pockets and landed on the ground noisily. Matt threw the Issacs into the nearest wall ten feet away before leaning down and picking up the remote. There were only two buttons on it, a green button that said "on" and a red one that said "off" at the top it said, "Project Alice"

Immediately Matt crushed the remote into plastic splinters. He was beyond pissed. Literally shaking with rage, he picked Alice up and called out, "Angie, lets go!"

Angie stepped out of the shadows by the front door. They walked down the stairs and into the van unopposed. If anyone saw what happened they were clearly too afraid to do anything about it.

Alice was still knocked out on the middle seat of the van when he arrived at the park again. Jill, Leon, and LJ were up, but Claire and Carlos were still down.

Matt got out of the car followed by Angie.

"What the hell happened?" was the first question he was greeted with by Jill.

"The corporation happened!" Matt snapped. "The possessed her!"

"Possessed?" LJ repeated questioningly.

"Yeah, possessed. If I would have been even a second later, Angie wouldn't be here!"

Leon was kneeling beside Claire, trying to wake her up. "What did she do?"

"She was about to shoot her right between the eyes. I knocked her out of the way as she shot the gun." That was when Matt remembered being shot in the shoulder and the burning pain returned. He put his hand over the wound and cursed.

"I have a feeling I know where the bullet went," LJ informed him.

"I know exactly where it went," Matt said from behind clenched teeth.

"Lets get back to the apartment. I'll see what I can do about your shoulder there." Jill told him.

"I'm fine," Matt insisted. "I'm more concerned about Alice."

"How is she gonna be when she wakes up?" Leon questioned.

"I don't know," Matt said, he out his head in his hands, ready to pull his hair out. "I really don't know."

"Ugh," a groggy voice said from behind him. "Alice?"

Matt turned around and saw Claire sitting up with some assistance from Leon.

"Let's get Carlos up," Matt said. "I'm ready to leave."

He walked over to help but as soon as he put his hand on Carlos's shoulder, his eyes shot open and he grabbed Matt's wrist. Immediately the former Umbrella agent jumped to his feet before realizing exactly whet happened. "Alice? Where the hell is she?"

Matt pointed to the van. "I managed to subdue her."

"What... how..." Carlos stammered, not really knowing what happened.

"I'll explain on the way back," Matt said shortly. He didn't really mean to snap at them, but he was so stressed at the moment.

~Ten minutes later~

Alice still hadn't woken up from her sleep. They were back at the apartment and somehow they'd managed to get her inside and up an elevator without anyone seeing noticing. Currently she was laying on a bed, completely still.

How long do you think she's gonna be like this?" LJ asked.

"No telling," Matt said. "But hopefully not for too long."

"Guys," Claire said, "she's stirring!"

"Get out," Matt said.

"What?" Jill and Carlos demanded at the same time.

"Now!" Matt said, he had no idea if she was still under Umbrella's influence or not.

Thankfully they trusted him enough to do what he said without too much questioning. The hurried out the door and Matt walked into Alice's room, shutting the door. Alice let out a soft groan before sitting up and looking at him. Her eyes were a normal blue-green again, but Matt was still weary.

"Please tell me that I was dreaming," she said finally, breaking the minute long silence.

"I wish I could," Matt said softly, "but I can't."

"Your arm," Alice said, looking at his wounded shoulder. "You took the bullet for... ANGIE! Is she okay? Please tell me I didn't hurt her!"

She got to her feet and walked toward him. "Matt, is she okay?"

"Angie's fine, we all are."

"I can't stay here," she said, shaking her head. "I can't."

"What do you mean?" Matt demanded as she leaned down picked up her suitcase, walked over to her dresser and started to pull her clothes from them.

"You know damn well what I mean," Alice snapped. "I can't do this. I almost killed Angie! If you'd been one second later,it would have been over. She'd be dead! You're all better of without me here!"

"No," Matt insisted, taking the clothes from her hands and throwing them back inside the dresser. She reached in to grab more so he grabbed her wrists, forcing her to stop.

"You're not going anywhere. We're going to bring those bastards down, and we're gonna do it together! No one here, not even Angie blames you! They know you'd never do that."

She tried to wrench her hands free from him but Matt wouldn't budge. "We need you."

"You need me far away," Alice retorted.

"Please," Matt pleaded. "Don't do this!"

"It can happen again if its happened once," Alice informed him.

"Well then we'll fight it off," Matt informed her.

"Why?" Alice said suddenly rounding in him. "Why is my presence so damn important to you?"

Matt looked at her for a moment before sighing and said, "You're the last thing I recall before my life went into complete hell, you're the last person that I remember before I was turned into a freak. I know it sounds silly but its the truth."

Alice looked up at him for a moment before her arms lost all of their tension and she just stood there. "I don't know, Matt. I shouldn't stay. You're here, you could protect them, I almost killed Angie and I could have just as easily have snapped all of your necks before I went to Umbrella headquarters. I could do it when you're all asleep."

Matt shook his head furiously. "No, you don't. We're not going to be staying much longer, we can disappear. Go to new York, they'd never find us!"

She sighed and nodded. "Alright."

Matt smiled in relief.

"Lets go I need to fix that shoulder."

"I'm-" he cut himself off as he saw the look on her face coupled with another wave of throbbing pain. "Let's go."

They walked out of the room and to the kitchen. "One second," Matt said. He walked to the front door and opened it, seeing the others were standing there anxiously. "She's fine," he informed them, the tension visibly left everyone.

They all hurried in, smiling in delight. Matt walked back into the kitchen with the rest of them and reluctantly sat down at the table.

"I hate to tell you I can't see your wound like this," Jill informed him.

"Oh," Matt said shaking his head, he removed his shirt and winced slightly as the cool air hit his bare torso and his shoulder. He looked down and saw that blood was still slowly leaking out of the wound.

Jill leaned forward looking at the wound and frowned. "That's not right."

Matt felt a twinge of nervousness creep in. What did she mean not right? Did the bullet puncture something?

"What is it?" Matt said, his voice strained.

"There's no bullet left," Alice murmured.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Matt demanded.

"It means that the virus has done its job. Your body rejected it and the virus made your body able to get rid of it," Alice explained.

Matt started calming down again. "Alright, so I'm okay?"

Alice nodded before saying, "Jill, the last thing a person wants to hear when you're working on them is, 'That's not right.'"

"True," Jill murmured. "Normally I have more tact then that..."

Matt just shook his head. These people were going to be the death of him.

~One Hour Later~

Matt looked up at the time from his position the couch. He was exhausted beyond belief. The day's events had taken a major toll on him. Everyone had gone back to their respective apartments to sleep. Angie and Carlos were in their rooms out like lights, it may have been only four o'clock, but everyone could probably sleep until four o'clock the next day. Matt, however couldn't find it in himself to sleep, and he didn't know why.

Alice had been pacing in the kitchen for the last half hour, and silence rang clear through the apartment. Matt couldn't take it anymore. He walked into the kitchen, desperately needing company of any kind.

There Alice was, walking the same way she was when he'd left her thirty minutes previously. "You know," he said, "you're gonna make a hole in the floor."

She didn't even look up at him as she responded. "Possibly, though I doubt I'll be pacing for that long."

"Why don't you sit down and relax?" Matt questioned.

"Why don't you lay down and get some sleep?" Alice countered.

"I don't know," Matt admitted. "Guess I'm still a bit wound up from earlier. He leaned against a clean counter, and crossed his arms over his chest as he watched her continue her pacing.

"Me too," she admitted. "I... I don't know, I still feel guilty as hell."

"I'd be concerned if you didn't feel remorseful," Matt said. "But you had nothing to do with it, nothing at all. And the fact that you feel bad about it says something about you."

Alice paused and turned around to look at him, her eyebrow raised. "What exactly does it say about me?"

He leaned forward, so he was at her eye level and said, "It means you're an amazing person, with a conscience, which is rare as hell, it means that you truly care about Angie and all of us, it tells me that you're not just a pretty face, you have substance, and you're compassionate."

Alice managed a weak smile. "You can tell that by one guilt trip?"

"Of course. I'm good at reading people, it's what made me so good for my job."

"So when you look at me, what do you see?" Alice questioned.

"I already told you," Matt said softly, leaning forward to grab her hand. "You're an amazing person," he leaned a bit closer to her, "caring," closer, "compassionate," closer, "you have a conscience," and finally he closed the distance between them. Her lips were soft and warm against his. The kiss was short and sweet. When he pulled back and looked at her, he saw that she had a smile on her face, but something was pained about it.

"Alice," he murmured, "is everything okay?"

She nodded. "Yeah, everything's fine."

"Come on," she said firmly, "let's go and get some sleep."

Matt didn't protest as she led them toward the rooms. He walked into his, and fell on the bed, not bothering to change or turn on the light to see where he was going. He was asleep within a second or two.

ALICE:

She watched Matt go into his room and sighed. She couldn't stay now, and if she wanted to leave, it had to be then because if she waited she wouldn't have the resolve to leave. She walked into her bedroom and grabbed her suitcase, emptying out all of the contents from the chest of drawers and putting them inside of the case. She sat down at the kitchen table and wrote out a short note telling them that she was sorry and that she cared about them too much to risk their lives for her own selfish desires.

She wrote a quick separate note to Matt and snuck into his room. She smiled at the sight of him sleeping, he looked so innocent. Sadly she set the notes down on his nightstand and turned around to leave.

"Alice?" A groggy voice said behind her.

She turned around, inwardly cursing. "Yeah, Matt?"

"What're you doing?" he questioned.

"I thought I left something in here, I was wrong. Go back to sleep."

Nodding, he laid his head down and passed out again. She walked out of the room, sighing in relief. She shouldered her suitcase and walked out the door, pausing to look back for just a second before waking out of the building and away from the people she cared about.

**This chapter had a sad ending... I don't like sad endings. On the bright side the next chapter introduces my third favorite guy character in the movies! Feel free to leave a comment below.**

**I don't own.**


	12. Chapter 12

JILL:

When she woke up, she felt much better. Her side hurt like hell where Alice managed to hit her but other than that she was fine. She sat up in her bed idly thinking. She wondered where Chris was and how Barry was doing. She missed them. Sighing, she jumped out of the bed. Looking at the clock, she saw it was seven in the morning. She wondered if the others were still asleep. Probably.

Alice and Matt were bound to be awake, they never seemed to sleep for long. She walked out of the room, cracking her back and stretching her sore muscles, wincing as she applied pressure to her side. The living room in her apartment was empty, so she decided to walk across the hall. It was quiet in there also. Carlos, Angie, and Alice were nowhere to be found. She saw Matt in the kitchen, sitting at the table with his head in his hands.

She walked over to him and sat down in the opposite side of the table. "Hey," she sighed, cracking her neck slightly.

Matt gave no response.

"Matt?"

Still nothing.

"What's wrong?" He didn't even look at her as he slid a piece of paper across the table, Alice's neat handwriting allayed across it.

Picking it up, she began to read.

'I'm leaving. I'm so sorry for what's happened. You're all much better of without me, I'm a walking risk to the people I care about, which is all of you. I'm not asking you to forgive me, but I am asking that you don't come looking for me. Bring Umbrella down, don't worry about me, I'm going to do my best against them, but I'm just better off away from people.'

Jill read the note over and over again, her insides freezing to the point of feeling like ice. Her heart rate began to increase and she looked up at Matt who was clutching onto another piece of paper like a lifeline.

"No," she breathed, "no, no, no, she didn't leave, she can't do that!"

"She's gone," Matt mumbled. "She's gone."

~Two hours later~

They were on the road, Matt was driving like a maniac through the interstate. He hadn't uttered so much as one word since he'd shown her the note. The entire van had a gloomy feeling to it, Jill didn't know how everyone else felt but she felt betrayed. There weren't many survivors of the hell that was Raccoon City, and the ones that were alive needed to stick together. She'd gotten close to each and everyone of them, her leaving was like losing a member of her family.

She put it to the back of her mind, being upset about the loss wasn't going to help take Umbrella down and it wasn't going to undo what Alice did. She had a job to do, when it was done she could be as sad as she wanted to be.

MATT:

He'd never felt such powerful outrage. He was almost shaking from anger. He saw her leave, he saw her! Why didn't he get up? He could have convinced her to stay. Now the only thing he had left of her was the short note she'd written, and he didn't have to look at that anymore, the words were imprinted into his memory.

'Matt,

Please don't hate me for this. I know you want me to stay, but deep down you know that I'm too dangerous. I'm sorry, but you have to stay here and take care of the others. You're perfectly capable, and extremely protective. Don't look for me, and make sure that Angie stays well.

I want you to do me a favor and forget about me, it'll be easier that way. I am so sorry.

Love,

Alice.'

He wasn't going to forget about her, that was for dammed sure.

Matt turned off the interstate, figuring that everyone was hungry. They'd made good time, they were out of Michigan and were well within Ohio. The turn off ramp led him into a quiet area full of trees and greens. A large sign was coming up they would announce the name of the town, with his extra sensitive vision, he saw that there was no reading the sign, it was covered in a red substance that resembled dried blood.

"Oh hell," he said.

"Damn," LJ uttered from the passenger seat beside him.

"Guys," Matt called. "There's a good chance that its infected. Its up to you."

Everyone instinctively turned and looked at Angie. She was in the back of the van, and her expression was determined. "People could need our help," Angie insisted. "Just because I'm nine doesn't mean a thing. What if there's an eight year old in there, seven year old, or six? If they need help, I'm all for it."

"On one condition," Jill cautioned, looking the girl straight in the eyes. "You do exactly as we say, exactly when we say it, no questions. Understood?"

Angie nodded rapidly. "Understood!"

Jill turned around to Matt, her expression grim. "Let's do this."

Matt cautiously stepped on the gas and they rode further into town. It wasn't too long before they found their first body. It was just laying in the middle of the road, not moving, it had been decaying for a good amount of time, there was one bullet hole on the left side of his head, directly into the brain. Cautiously, Matt drove around it and they rode further into the town. And what he saw took his breath away and filled him to the brim with anger and disgust.

The town was deserted of the living. As they continue their journey further in, they saw that blood was scattered into the ebony dirt. A random car was flipped over with the glass knocked out and blood caked the dirty glass, a sign that there had been a state of panic before it was completely overrun. A lone body laid in the center of the of the road, the peachy colored skin slowly turning brown with one wide green eye the other eye socket was empty, and a single wound wound from a gun could be found, a headshot just like the body that Matt had seen further up.

The only stable building was the Kmart store. It was hardly recognizable with the slashes of blood on the brick walls, covering up most of the paint that had previously been visible, Matt didn't want to know who's blood covered the building. The only thing that signaled it was Kmart was the large broken K. The town seemed as friendly as a bitch fight.

Matt turned back around and looked at the others, "There's someone alive in this town."

They stared at him blankly. "How do you know?" Leon inquired.

"Well," Matt said, "its hard to explain, really. You know how I knew which pathways to take in police station and in the school?"

"Yeah," LJ said.

"Same way," Matt informed them.

"You know where?" Claire questioned.

Matt pointed toward a large building, northeast of their position. "Kmart."

Strangely enough, there wasn't a large crowd around the store. Thirty forty strong, in the parkinglot itself, most of the undead were just shuffling around.

"Matt," Claire said, "don't they normally go toward the living?"

Matt nodded. "Whoever it is must he either well hidden or already infected. Let's hope for the best."

He parked the van as close as possible to the store and turned the engine off. "Alright, lets go."

Matt opened his door and saw that the carriers were starting to slowly shuffle towards them, "Come on!" he snapped at them. "I don't feel like being overrun and using our guns before we find the survivor isn't really an option."

Everyone was out of the van and they rushed inside. The lights were off, but the light from the outside was enough for everyone to see. "Alright," Matt murmured. "Split up... LJ, Angie, Carlos, you guys take the back of the store, Claire and Leon, take the right, Jill and I can take left, sound good?"

Everyone nodded and separated.

LEON:

His senses were running overtime. It was deathly quiet in the abandoned store, well almost abandoned; there was another person there he just didn't know where the person was. Claire was beside him, her eyes darting everywhere, not seeming to stay on a single object for more than a second or so.

Of course that might have been the reason why she was the one to stop him. Her hand flashed up and across his chest, "Wait," she commanded.

He paused without question.

"On the aisle nearest to you on your left. Something moved."

Leon nodded and said. "I'll go down the one behind it, you go all the way back and see what you can find. Maybe it's a survivor, if it's not, then please be careful."

"No worries," Claire replied easily. She stepped forward as Leon turned around. "Good luck," she called over her shoulder.

"Alright, then," Leon muttered to himself under his breath. He silently crept up to the confinement of the shelves, the contents were scattered all over the floor, making it nearly impossible to maneuver around without making a lot of noise. It was painfully slow progress, considering that the person might need his help, but eventually he made it to the end and looked down. There was more mess on the floor going down both ways of the right side of the store, but that's all there was, mess, there was certainly nothing capable of moving.

'If Claire said she saw it, then she saw it, dammit,' he thought to himself.

His eyes swept around, looking for anything that would give away the person's position. Whoever it was obviously alive, the undead (dog or person) were instinctively attracted to the living. 'Your training, Kennedy! How about use it!'

"Hello," Leon called out, his voice was calm and soothing, he made sure that he wasn't loud enough to attract any unwanted attention, but he was loud enough for the person to hear him. "My name is Leon, and I'm here to help, if you come out, we can get you outta here."

He heard the sound of soft footsteps from the aisle to his immediate right. "You-you're not one of those things?"

The girl couldn't have been more than eleven. She had straight blonde hair with brown highlights, her eyes were a brilliant green, her clothes were rumbled and her face was smudged with dirt, showing that she had most likely been nowhere near the store at the start of the outbreak.

Leon managed an assuring smile before saying, "No, I'm not."

"They... they took my parents and bit them... I..., they told me to run and find somewhere safe," she bursted out in tears.

Not knowing what else to do, Leon stepped forward and embraced the young girl.

"I need to find my parents," she sniffled.

'Oh god,' Leon thought desperately. How was he supposed to tell the poor girl that she didn't have any parents to find?

"How long have you been here?" he inquired, trying to take her off the subject of her family.

"Three days," she said shakily. "I... I just wanna go home!"

"So do I," he whispered to her. He was a long way from home, and he seriously doubted that he'd ever get back home again.

"Hey," a voice about twenty feet off said. Leon looked up and saw Claire standing there, she was walking toward the two of them, a half smile on her face.

"Hey, Claire," Leon said carefully. "This is..." Leon trailed off looking at the girl, he really didn't know what her name was.

She was silent for a moment before saying, "Kmart."

Leon raised an eyebrow, but decided not to say anything about her name choice. "Alright then, Claire, this is Kmart."

They were silent for a moment, Kmart taking in that there were other people around that weren't trying to kill her. "So are we going to find my parents?"

Claire looked at Leon for a moment before asking, "Are they in the store?"

Leon shook his head, "No, three days ago, they were bitten and told Kmart over here to go somewhere safe."

Understanding immediately came to Claire's eyes. Slowly she walked up to Kmart and said. "I don't known how to tell you this, but I don't think we're going to be able to find your parents."

Kmart's eyes widened a bit in slight panic. "What... what do you mean?"

"Do you know how normal people turn into those things?"

She shook her head. "I don't."

"If you're bit by one, you become one," she said. "Your parents were bit, I'm so sorry."

Kmart just stood there, she didn't say anything, but a look of absolute devastation formed on he features. Claire hesitantly put a hand on the girl's shoulder. It was a silent moment where neither adults had any idea what to say. Eventually Kmart came out of her shock. "I-I had suspicions, but I just didn't know a.d I didn't want to believe..." she trailed off, grieving too much for words.

"Kmart," Leon said softly, looking at the poor girl. "I know you're upset, and I don't blame you, but we need to get outta here. Your parents wanted you to stay safe, we need to respect that."

That was apparently the right thing to say, it snapped her from her trance of grief, and put a layer of steel into her green eyes, it turned her into the girl that could have survived three days of this hell. "Alright then," she said, her voice as steady as her gaze, "let's go."

"We've gotta get the others first," Claire told her.

"The others?" Kmart repeated questioningly, as Leon led the two of them down the nearest aisle. "How many of you are there?"

"She's one of a kind," Leon joked, turning around to wink at the young girl encouragingly.

He could practically hear Claire roll her eyes. "There are five others. One of us is only nine, she could probably use a good friend like I'm sure you're capable of being."

Everything was quiet for a moment while they walked through the aisles, searching for Jill and Matt on the opposite side of the store. He caught a sign of movement on the other side if one of the aisles, but he didn't trust it. "Claire," he said, never taking his eyes off the spot where he'd seen the movement. "Stay here with Kmart for a moment, please. I um... I might have found Matt and I don't want to overwhelm her."

He knew that Claire would know what he meant, he also knew that she was going to be furious at him for leaving her behind, but she would do as he asked for the sake of not scaring Kmart... he was going to get an earfull later. Creeping up he grabbed his Bowie knife from its spot on his belt. He didn't know what it was, but he was sure it wasn't friendly. He made it to the end of the hallway and wished he was back with Claire. As soon as he turned left, he stood face to face with another dog.

"Shit," he cussed, holding his knife tightly. If he thought dobermans were bad, he obviously hadn't envisioned German Shepherds. It growled at him, showing off his long, sharp, and infected teeth. As it inched forward, he noticed that it was actually missing a front left leg along with a good portion of the left side of his abdomen. "Good doggy, nice doggy..."

Apparently that wasn't the right thing to say, the dog growled one more time before springing at him, clearly it didn't need that missing front leg. Leon didn't have enough time to jump out of the way, so he did what came instinctively, he slashed the knife. The dog fell to the ground, a knife sticking out the back of his neck. Leon's heart was beating hard enough to make a jackhammer jealous as he wiped his sweaty forehead.

"I hate those damned things," he muttered to himself.

Another growl caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up and he immediately stiffened up. Apparently he'd insulted another dog. Slowly be turned around, and saw a very bloody Rottweiler standing five feet behind him. A chunk of his neck was missing and his ribcage was showing much more contents than Leon would have normally been able to stomach seeing. Leon stood there weaponless, he knew that the dog was maybe a half second from jumping at him, its latest snack, and Leon knew that even if jumped for the knife, the Rottweiler would have him on the ground and a large chunck torn out of him in less than two seconds. That didn't mean he wasn't going to try, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the blade. Immediately he dove for it, but the dog was faster, it slammed into him, knocking him from his weapon. He saw the teeth coming for him, oblivious to his attempts to stop him, the dogs mouth was maybe an inch at the most from his neck when he felt something solid hit the creature and it collapsed on him, dead.

Cursing under his breath, he pushed the thing off him. There was a large knife sticking out of its neck, jumping to his feet, he saw his rescuer. It was a tall, muscular man with close cropped dark brown hair and deep green eyes. "Thought you could use a hand," the stranger said in a deep but friendly voice.

"Yeah," Leon said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "Guess I didn't see that one."

"No problem," the man said "I've done worse, it's always good to have someone around to save your ass, though."

"I left my friend back there," he pointed to where he'd left Claire and Kmart, "we'd found a child here, and I didn't want to scare her."

The man chuckled darkly. "If the child managed to survive this hell, I don't think she's going to be scared by much anymore."

"Yeah," Leon said, "Claire's going to probably tell me right off later on."

"I'm Chris by the way," he said.

Leon walked over and shook his hand, "Leon."

"Come on, let's go and find your friends," Chris suggested.

Leon looked down at his shirt and grimaced, "Yeah, I'ma need a new shirt too..."

Chris cracked a smile as they walked down the aisle back to the others. He heard the others before he saw them. Claire was saying something to Kmart. "I'm sure he's fine, but if he isn't back in a minute I'ma go and see what's taking him so long," Leon could hear the worry laced in her voice, he couldn't help but smile at it, he started walking faster, wanting to assure them that he was okay.

"Leon!" Claire exclaimed, "you're okay!" She ran up to him and hugged him tightly. "Why are you covered it blood?"

"Dog," Leon murmured, closing his eyes in contentment. When Claire released him he said, "I had someone save my ass," he informed her.

"Who?" Claire questioned. "Jill? Matt?"

Leon shook his head. "Chris."

Claire turned to Chris, noticing him for the first time. Leon saw that Chris was looking at Claire in silence, obvious disbelief splayed across his features.

"Chris," Claire whispered.

Chris smiled, and rushed forward, pulling Claire into a hug, one that she fiercely returned. "Good god, Claire," he muttered. "What the hell are you doing here?"

When they separated, he saw that Claire's eyes were watery, but Leon ignored it and looked to the two of them for an explanation.

"Leon," Claire said, excitement in her voice, "this... this is Chris Redfield, my brother."

"This is the man you went looking for?" Leon said, looking at the hulking figure that was her brother.

"Went looking?" Chris repeated, confused.

"She went to Raccoon city the night that I did... it was bombed just after we made it out."

"You... she... zombies..." Chris said, apparently shocked.

Claire looked down at Kmart, and grabbed the young girl's hand. "And this, is Kmart."

Chris absently looked down at the child, still in shock, until her name set in. "Kmart?"

"Yep," Kmart said.

Chris looked at the two of them before blinking. "Shouldn't we get outta here? There's probably more dogs. And you said something about Matt and Jill, who are they?"

Claire thought for a moment before saying, "They're apart of our... convoy."

JILL:

They'd searched up and down their side of the search, they hadn't found a thing. Walking down the cluttered backwall, she looked around, they seemed to be in the gardening tools department, nothing that was to of any use to her.

She was idly looking at a lock, wondering if she'd be able to break into any sheds around here if it was required, when Matt stuck his arm out, stopping her from moving. "What?" She questioned.

"Two dogs are dead down there, and I hear voices northeast of our position."

'Damn,' she thought, 'Matt's good.'

"Anyone dead down there?" she questioned.

Matt shook his head.

"Alright then," she said, "come on."

They walked down the hallway to the two dogs. "That looks painful," Matt said, looking at what used to be a German Shepherd. Jill couldn't help but agree, the poor thing was missing a leg.

They turned down the hallway and she saw four people talking on the other end, Claire and Leon she recognized, but there was a small girl that she didn't know and a tall man with short brown hair was facing away from her. "I see you found them," Matt called, making their presence known, smart idea.

Leon, Claire, and the small girl glanced over at the two of them. The tall man jumped slightly and he turned around to greet them. Jill's heart almost exploded, she recognized him, alright.

"Oh my god," she said loudly enough for it to carry to his ears, "Chris is that really you?"

Chris Redfield cracked a wide smile and said, "Sure is, Jill." Not thinking, she ran up to him and jumped into his arms, hugging him tightly. In his own enthusiasm, he literally picked her up off the ground and spun her around. "Next time, you gonna take me up on my offer?"

Jill nodded as he put her down. "Next time I'll ride with you. Where's Barry?"

"He grabbed his wife and kids, I encouraged him to flee with them, they need him more than we do."

Jill nodded and looked around, everyone was watching the two of them. She felt a blush come to her face for no reason.

"I'm sorry to break this up," Matt said quietly from behind them, "but we need to go, Carlos, LJ, and Angie should be at the back in the middle. Can you all go to the front? I'll grab them."

"You need any help, man?" Chris asked.

Matt shook his head, "No, I'm fine." He walked off without so much as another word.

Chris looked at the rest of them, interest in his eyes. "Come on," Jill said. "Let's go, Matt's more capable than the rest of us put together." Smiling she put in, "Yes, even more than you, Chris."

"Same old Jill," Chris muttered. "I can tell hell did nothing for you."

Jill snorted before walking forward, knowing he would follow. They made it to the end of the store, the van in sight, but the zombies were surrounding it. Chris cursed under his breath, and immediately reached for his holster where his Beretta was sitting. Jill snatched his hand away, shaking her head. The zombies had already noticed them and they were shuffling toward them. "Well the what do you suggest?" he snapped.

"Let me think," Jill said. She was looking around for anything to stave them off, but there wasn't anything.

"What are you waiting for?" Matt's voice came from maybe fifty feet away, "Shoot the damn things!"

"Now," Jill said, "we shoot them."

She unholstered her 9mm and started easily making headshots. Zombie after zombie fell as the four of them fired, the child named Kmart had taken refuge behind Leon, the noise of the guns clearly terrified her. Then again it was probably the loudest sound she'd heard in a couple of days.

Matt was right beside her when he muttered, "Fuck this. Get down!" Jill didn't question him, she just flattened herself on the ground, pulling Angie down with her, instinctively shielding her with her own body. Everything was quiet for a moment, no more shots were being made, and the shuffling of the zombies was the only sound, then BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! Three cars exploded in rapid succession of each other. Jill could feel the sheer heat of the explosion and was expecting to be turned into a crisp. But the heat just simply died down, and the cold air settled back down on her skin, she resisted the urge to shiver as she got to her feet.

As she looked around, she saw that out of the entire parking lot, the only thing that was still in tact was their van and a red Camaro. "Damn," she heard LJ say, "just like Raccoon..."

Not really wanting to know what he was talking about, Jill said, "Come on."

"Wait," Carlos snapped. She turned around surprised, Carlos was normally a very mellow person. Matt was leaning heavily against his shoulder, Chris immediately walked over and wrapped Matt's other arm around his neck.

"Alright," Chris said, "let's go. I want an explanation! And how did he know the Camaro was my ride?"

"It had keys," Matt murmured drowsily.

"Shh," Claire said gently. "Conserve your energy."

"Alright," Jill said, "lets go!"

They all rushed outside, the children were in the middle along with Carlos and Chris, who were prwctically carrying Matt, Jill, Claire, and Leon were on constant guard, making sure that no zombies were around to attack, but there wasn't any danger, Matt had done his job well.

"Angie, Camaro," Jill said, "Leon drive the van?"

Leon nodded and hopped into the driver's seat. "I'll take care of Matt," Claire volunteered. "You and Chris go ahead in the Camaro, Carlos, you can keep me company in the back, Kmart can sit shotgun if she wants, LJ can crash in the middle. But we gotta go."

They were situated in less than a minute, but not a second too soon, they just started moving as the first zombie shuffled into the parking lot. But that didn't matter, they were on their way out of the town, Jill had been reunited with her partner, and they found another survivor, all in all, things were looking up. Now all they had to do was get to New York and talk to Matt's friend Aaron something or another, and hopefully they would begin the lengthy process of taking down umbrella.

**Hi! Nornally I'm not one to ask for reviews, but I'd appreciate more than just one per chapter. Just to know you're there, you know? Reviews=inspiration=more updates. So tell me what you think. Say what you want to happen. I take my reviews into serious consideration!**

**Now off the plea for inspiration: Last chapter was my longest ever! Yay! Also, this is the last chapter before extinction. (there's your answer big fan :))**


	13. Chapter 13

~Three Years Later~

CLAIRE:

Claire Redfield was one extremely tired woman. Being placed in charge of a convoy alongside Carlos Olivera wasn't too bad, but it was one hell of a big responsibility. One that she hadn't been necessarily ready to take on.

She could remember everything that'd happened to lead up to the event. First was a year and a half before when Chris walked up her, stating that he'd heard a radio transmission from LA, they needed backup from any trained officer available. Jill, Chris, Matt, Carlos and Leon had all felt the need, but Carlos and Matt stayed behind, because they were convinced that they were needed to protect the convoy. Matt and Carlos were both the leaders, which was cool with Claire, she liked both of them. Carlos was the most verbose one out of the pair, Matt had went silent after Alice left, and he remained the quiet, angry soldier.

They went the next year and a half with nothing major happening, including no contact from the others. She was worried sick about them all, but she couldn't afford to show it. Then two weeks ago, everything went to shit. They were ambushed by Umbrella soldiers, they'd killed three of the convoy's able fighters, and Matt allowed them to capture him in order to stop more killings. Claire was promoted to fill his position and she was missing him more and more everyday.

The world had went to hell mere weeks after they left Ohio with Kmart and Chris. So it wasn't like they could press charges on Umbrella for kidnap and murder, so they moved on, burying the bodies, and hit the road yet again like they always did.

She was driving in her Hummer with Kmart and Angie. Kmart was in the front with her, while Angie was in the back, taking a nap. Claire looked over at the fourteen year old girl in the seat next to her and saw, with a glimmer of amusement, that she was doing her makeup."

"Kay," Claire said, "if you do your eyeliner you're gonna poke your eye out, the rode's about to get bumpy."

Snorting, she nodded, "Alright, no eyeliner."

"I never got why you insist on keeping your makeup on," Claire said, shaking her head. "Is there a boy?"

Kmart stiffened up for a moment and a blush came to her cheeks before she loudly protested, "No there isn't! I just like doing makeup, it makes me feel normal." She smirked before adding, "Just because Leon isn't around for you to try to make yourself look presentable..."

Claire could feel the blush rising to her cheeks and she laughed in spite of her embarrassment.

Kmart sighed and said, "I miss him... I mean I miss the three of them, but I miss him."

Claire nodded in agreement and in understanding. Kmart had gotten very close to Leon since they'd found her. Claire could see why, he was a very likeable person. "I do too."

She heard a groan as Angie yawned loudly in the back. "I miss all of them, Chris, Jill, Matt, and Alice."

Kmart got the look she always had when Alice's name was brought up, the look of curiosity. They found her the day after Alice left so she'd never met her.

Claire picked up her radio, she needed a cigarette. "Hey Carlos," she said into the mouth piece, "got any smokes."

"None," his voice said after a moment, "we're completely dry over here."

"You're shittin me," Claire accused.

"Now Claire," she could hear the smile in his voice, "would I lie to you?"

Claire didn't answer the question, he already knew her answer. "Chase, LJ, what about you guys?"

"Fresh out over here too Claire," Chase said, she could hear LJ laughing quietly beside him, so she didn't know if he was lying or not.

"Claire," Carlos's laughing voice came over the radio, "I do distinctly remember you telling us off when we used foul language in front of the children."

"Angie was nine!" She protested laughingly.

"You stopped Matt from calling LJ a dumbass when the man was battling the T-virus!" Carlos countered.

Silence. Matt's name was a sad one to use everyone paused for a moment, pulling themselves together before Claire started up again, "No f-bombs, that's the rule now."

"Damn!" LJ's voice came over.

Kmart and Angie both laughed. "What's wrong, LJ?" Kmart questioned.

"Is that you, Kay?" He questioned.

"Yep," she answered merrily.

"Well let's just say that month before I met you, that was my favorite word."

Kmart laughed and shook her head.

Claire looked up at the sun and sighed, it was getting lower, which meant that the needed to stop for the night. They needed a full perimeter check before the sun got too low, nothing more damaging than zombies surprising you at night. She suppressed a shudder at the memories that the though had brought back.

"We need to settle down," Carlos's voice came over the radio. Claire smiled and shook her head, it was like he could read her mind.

"Agreed," Claire said, "Mikey, any good spots?"

A few seconds later their technology expert, Mikey came on, "Yeah, Desert Trail Motel is up a little ways."

"Then let's go there," Claire commanded. There was no need to tell him to lead the way, he was always at the front of the convoy. He took a sharp left, which Otto, who was driving a bus full of children and a couple adults, copied. Claire followed the same route, followed by Carlos, Chase and LJ, and Betty, the medic. It didn't take ten minutes for them to find the motel. Immediately, Claire hopped out of the, Hummer and motioned for Kmart and Angie to stay put. She cracked her neck, a noise that carried through the still air.

Mikey was already assembling their security equipment, while LJ, Carlos, and Claire walked toward the hotel room. On her way, she saw Chase climbing the ladder of the gas tanker. A cowboy sniper, the thought made her smile.

She entered the hotel, holding a handgun ready to use at anytime. She looked around, searching for movement of any kind, but didn't find anything. She was about to call it quits and go back to Kmart and Angie when she heard a gunshot and a lot of yelling, and another gunshot. Not even thinking, she ran out of the front of the hotel, and toward the sound of distress. When she made it to the open hotel room, Carlos was there, his own weapon pointed at the bed, LJ was standing up, clutching his arm, Claire's heart dropped. "Did you..."

Claire couldn't even finish the thought. If LJ was bit... that only left Carlos and Angie, they would be the only people who would know what Raccoon was like, she didn't know what she would do.

LJ quickly shook his head, and removed his hand from his arm, there was a large gash oozing blood, but it wasn't a bite. Claire took a shaky breath as he said, "I shot the bitch's reflection, she tackled me to the bed, but before she could bite me, I pushed her off and rolled to the bed, there was a huge ass piece of glass from the mirror."

Claire nodded in understanding, "You're still an asshole! Don't do that again!" She took a shaky breath before saying, "Stay here."

She walked out of the room and called for Betty. The medic came over, her eyes were filled with worry, "Is LJ-"

"He's fine," Claire assured the poor woman. She was sure if Betty's curly brown hair hadn't been pulled back, she would have pulled it out of her scalp. "He has a cut..." Claire trailed off and watched in amusement as Betty hurried forward into the room.

Carlos walked out of there a moment later, shaking his head in amusement and slight disgust. "They are so MUSHY! Can you believe that that's the same LJ?"

Claire shook her head. LJ had changed, that much was obvious, he wasn't the same selfish man that was in Raccoon city, he'd grown up a lot, and turned into a valuable and respected member of the convoy, and a good friend. That's not to say that he'd lost his sense of humor, he'd never lose that.

Claire smiled at Carlos, "It could be worse."

"Oh yeah," Carlos questioned, "How so?"

"We could be around Chris and Jill."

Both of them shuddered at the same time before bursting out in fits of laughter.

"I'll see you in a few, Claire," Carlos said, "my turn for perimeter."

Claire nodded and they both went in opposite directions, Claire went to the cameras that Mikey had finished setting up, and Carlos went to the large 4 wheeler.

When she got there, all of the cameras were blank and snowy. Just then one turned on. Carlos was being slow. Smirking, Claire grabbed Mikey's walkie talkie, and said, "Come on, Olivera! I want my perimeter up!"

"Almost there Redfield," Carlos replied. "What's gotten you so antsy?"

"What's gotten you so slow?" Claire countered.

"Slow?" Carlos demanded as the rest of the cameras flickered on. "I'm not slow! I've been doing this for almost ten years! "

"Maybe you're getting too old," Claire quipped.

"Old? Claire, I'm only twenty six!"

"Only?" She laughed.

"You're twenty one!" Carlos's yelled in the distance, getting closer.

"Yeah? And?" She shouted back.

Carlos just laughed and drove off, probably to get some food... food did sound good.

ALICE:

She hated marauders. They were epic pains in the ass. The sick and the psychotic thrived in the post apocalyptic world. She was riding away from an encounter with some of the psychos as she was thinking about it. The had dogs, ZOMBIE dogs, enclosed, they lured her there saying that they needed help, and threw her into the cage with them. The sick bastards!

She shook her head and sighed, with her sharp vision, she saw a gas station coming up. She didn't want to stop but, looking down at her fuel gauge, she saw that it was on empty. If she didn't get some gas soon, she was going to have some serious problems. She parked her bike at one of the gas pumps and tried the file. Sighing and cussing, she realized that it was empty, "Damn."

She saw a zombie shuffling toward her, they didn't see her as food, but she broke the once man's neck anyway.

She was determined to make the pitstop worth SOMETHING, she walked into the store, picking up a few bottles of the water and put them in her bag, nit seeing anything else worthwhile, she turned around, prepared to walk out, when she heard a buzzing noise coming from behind a door with a plaque that read EMPLOYEES ONLY. Cautiously, she moved to the back of the store, where the door was. The buzzing was extremely loud now, she was surprised that she hadn't noticed it as soon as she walked into the store with her sharpened hearing. As soon as she opened the door, she wished that she wouldn't have noticed it at all. A body hung from the ceiling by a rope, from the smell it'd been there for a while, hundreds of thousands of flies were surrounding it, buzzing. She was glad that she'd passed up lunch and breakfast that day. Covering her mouth and nose, she backed away, that was until she saw a red book fall out of the corpse's pocket. Hurriedly, she bent down and picked it up, slamming the door. She ran out of the store, trying to ease her turning stomach, it smelt worse than Raccoon did.

She ran to her bike and raced away from the gas station.

~Ten Minutes Later~

She was sitting down beside a small fire, using the dying light from the rapidly setting sun and the light from the flames to look through the book, and listening to the radio, a startlingly familiar voice.

"Hello! This is Claire Redfield's convoy, we are currently stopped at the Desert Trail Motel. If you need help or would like to join up, we'll accept members with open arms." The familiarity coupled with the book comforted her.

There were small things written and pictures all pointing to one fact: there was an uninfected spot called Arcadia, and from the look of the maps it was in Antarctica. The last broadcast was six months or so ago, but it sounded promising.

Alice laid down, closed her eyes, thought about Arcadia, for the first time in three years, she smiled, wondering if that was where Matt was.

MATT:

He was in titanium hand cuffs, so strong even he couldn't break them. He'd tried time and time again. Looking around, he was in a pure white eight by eight room. He was in a prison, and he hadn't even done anything, hell he'd been the reason that people had ended up in rooms like this! No one else had come into the room in a week, Dr. Isaacs had come in once about seven days ago and pulled blood out of him to perform tests on. In the time it took to subdue him, Matt had managed to break two necks with a kick and a well placed ram with his shoulder. He broke four legs, fractured a wrist, broke three arms, and broke at least twenty ribs.

When they had him strapped down, Isaacs had cupped his hand around his throat and growled in his ear, "I don't care who you are, the next time you pull a stunt like that, I WILL kill you."

Matt had glared up at him and attempted to headbutt him, however, they had his head strapped down. "Fuck you!" he spat in his face. Isaacs wiped the saliva off his face and roughly stuck his arm with the needle and drew the blood, Matt wasn't able to move so much as an inch.

Matt leaned against the wall, his eyes closed as he thought about everything that'd happened.

He heard the door open, his eyes snapped opened and he jumped to his feet. Dr. Isaacs was there with a young man with close cropped brown hair and green hazel eyes. He had a clipboard in his hand. Matt looked at them with a bored expression.

"Project Matthew," Isaacs said, his voice as formal as always. "We have something for you."

Matt shrugged, "We've already been through this. My answer is the same, 'Fuck you.'"

Isaacs smiled coldly, and stepped to the side as the assistant backed out of the room. Another man came in. He had spiky brown hair, blue eyes, a blue button up shirt on along with a pair of dress pants. It was him when he walked inside of the hive.

"What the hell have you done?" Matt demanded.

His clone looked at him blankly as Isaacs answered, "I do believe you know what we've done. This is Matthew Addison 14."

Matt felt hot anger surging through his body as Isaacs continued. "Now I thought that I would show you a demonstration of what we are doing."

"This isn't good enough?" Matt demanded.

Isaacs snapped his fingers, the assistant brought in a tablet. "You might want to watch this."

Matt looked at the tablet and saw a camera view of Alice. She was in a red dress and biker shorts, yet again, which was the exact way he'd met her. Slowly she walked out of what was probably her bedroom, the house she was in, was a replica of the Spenser estate. He watched, confused as she walked down the hall, stopping to look at a picture of her in a wedding gown and Spence in a tux, her 'wedding day,' she looked around yet again, and kept looking through the house.

'What the hell?' he thought, but he kept watching, deciding to ask questions later.

The next room she walked through was all too familiar. It was well lit, the walls were glass with bright lights. Alice instinctively paused as a beam of light formed on the other side, it immediately raced toward her, turning slightly and widened to resemble a net. She looked up frantically, seeing a vent she jumped and climbed in, she made it just in time, it was so close that the laser managed to snare a piece of cloth off the tip of her red dress. The camera changed, and he saw her inching through the vent and eventually she came to the next room, jumping down out of another hole.

She was standing in a sterile white hallway that was all too familiar to Matt, she was in the Raccoon City hospital. Slowly she crept through the eerily deserted hallway, the silence obviously made her uneasy. She was about to turn a corner to go outside when one of the tiles that she stepped on gave away and went down. About five feet in front of her a disk shot into the air, spinning. Alice paused, apparently not knowing what it was, it was a mistake. Once it was level with her upper torso, it started spitting out bullets, it tore clean through her abdomen.

"NO!" Matt yelped, jumping forward as if he would be able to reach her through the tablet. He dropped to his knees, watching her die being too much for him to bear.

He brought his head up and saw that Isaacs was looking at him, smiling coldly.

"You sick bastard," Matt swore, getting to his feet despite his grievances.

"You just watched the short life of Alice Abernathy 23," Isaacs informed him.

"You're cloning her?" Matt yelled.

Isaacs smiled coldly, yet again, and Matt's muscles were straining against the cuffs. "Come on," Isaacs ordered to his assistant, "Time to go."

They walked out the door, Matt cursing at then at the top of his lungs. Eventually he slid down the wall, shaking with rage and stress.

~The Next Morning~

ALICE:

She was dreaming about the same event that Matt witnessed. Tossing and turning, she was becoming agitated by the disturbing dreams, and unconsciously her telekinetic powers started working. At first, it was just the smaller stones. Then it was large boulders, continuously getting larger until her bike was in the air. As soon as he clone was shot, she snapped awake, automatically cutting off her powers.

She watched in dismay as her bike hit the ground. "Damn!" She cursed aloud, looks like she was walking.

CARLOS:

He woke up to someone hissing his name over the radio. Drowsily, he reached out and and grabbed his own, "Yeah," he whispered, not sure why be was talking so low, "what is it?"

"Look up," it was Claire.

Not alert enough to question her, he looked up in the air, and he was wide awake, as if some one had given him a triple concentrated espresso. There were hundreds of crows flying around, five or six of them were settling on his car. Normally that wouldn't mean anything, but Carlos took a closer look at their eyes: they were a milky blue. Zombified crows.

"What do we do?" She whispered through the radio.

"Sit tight," Carlos said, knowing everyone would be able to hear him. "Don't make a sound."

Everything was okay for about two minutes, it was quiet and Carlos had hopes that the birds would just fly away... that was when a crow on top of the bus squawked. It was like a battle cry, all of the crows repeated it and they all flew into the air.

"Screw this!" Carlos yelled into his radio, "Drive! Get the hell outta here!"

Following his own orders, he turned on his car, threw it into drive and started to move, he was maybe a hundred yards away from the hotel, two of the four other vehicles were following him.

"The bus crashed!" Kmart's frantic voice came over the radio.

Automatically, Carlos made a U-turn and sped back toward the hotel, both of the others following his lead.

Betty's ambulance was opened at the back and she and Claire were outside, hearding the children into the back, shooting the crows that got too close. Carlos jumped out of his car and saw his passenger, Tommy get out as well. They both ran over over to the car and hurriedly began to hurry the children along. Tommy jumped into the bus when he saw that Otto was battling with the windshield.

"Betty!" Carlos said, pushing another person into the car, "get into the driver's seat! You need to leave as soon as we say!"

He heard a scream and saw that a girl had been knocked off by a swarm of crows and was being torn apart. He shot at them and saw that she was already dead. His heart ached as he realized it. Another girl had been knocked off, but she army crawled under the bus. Carlos didn't have very long to think about her though. A crow was coming at Claire, but it didn't get too far, Carlos shot it down.

Tommy threw what looked to be the last kid out of the bus, she crawled into the ambulance. When Carlos looked at Tommy again, he saw that he had bloody marks all over him. Otto had just lost his battle with the crows on the windshield Tommy seemed to realize it because he shut the door, still on the bus. He heard gunshots right before he was overcome.

Another man had scrambled on the roof of one of the other vehicles and made quick use of the flamethrower. The bus door opened and poor Otto fell through, being pecked alive by the monstrous birds.

The girl under the bus was apparently startled by the act and rolled out on Carlos's side, and ran away from the crows. The man who was manning the flamethrower was overcome by the crows, and the thrower was moving rapidly toward the girl, flames still shooting out. Carlos jumped toward the girl and covered her body with his, shielding her from the flames.

He felt the scorching heat come rapidly closer, he closed his eyes, bracing for the impact of the flames, but it never came. He opened his eyes and he almost died of a heart attack, because what he saw he was sure he'd never see again. Alice Abernathy was standing ten feet away from him keeping the flames from reaching him. Her pupils dilated and the flames exploded into the air, incinerating the birds seconds later, the air was silent and still.

Carlos let go of the young girl and walked toward Alice. Suddenly her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she collapsed, luckily Carlos was close enough to grab her before she hit the ground.

Seconds later Claire came running up. "Son of a bitch," she breathed, looking at Alice, "I can't believe it."

~Three Hours Later~

ALICE:

She woke up on something that was a hell of a lot comfier than the ground, which was what she was accustomed to sleeping on. The events that happened before she passed out came rushing back to her, and she inwardly cringed at how much her powers had drained her. And now her effort to stay away from people had come across as pointless. She'd definitely seen Carlos and she saw someone that looked like Claire. Matt, Angie, Jill, Leon, and LJ were bound to be around somewhere.

She opened her eyes and cracked her neck. Her left wrist had an unfamiliar weight to it, frowning she lifted it up and looked. There was a colorful woven bracelet on it. Turning her head, she saw that she wasn't alone. A pretty teenage girl, probably fifteen or sixteen, was sitting on a chair maybe five feet away. She had straight blond-brown hair, green eyes, and, oddly enough, makeup on.

"Hey," Alice said.

"Hi," the girl replied softly.

Alice pointed to the bracelet, smiling, "This yours?"

"I gave it to you a little while ago," she answered, "for luck."

Alice sat up on the couch and said, "Well thank you... do you have a name?"

"Kmart," she answered.

Alice took in a deep breath to answer, when she realized the girls name she just let it back out. "Really?"

"Well," the girl relented, "that's what everyone calls me, I never liked my real name, everyone that I knew was dead and I decided that it was time for a change, it was where Claire, Leon, and the others found me three years ago."

Alice nodded in understanding, feeling sympathy for the girl's position.

"Come on," Kmart said, "if you're up to it, I know three people that would probably appreciate seeing you."

Alice didn't know which three, but she figured that it would be nice. "Alright," she stood up, cracking her back, "Let's go."

**I got three reviews! So I be updating early! Keep up the inspiration! I own nothing.**


	14. What Happened to Jill, Chris, and Leon

_God I poured blood sweat and tears into this chapter. It took me almost a week to write, it NEVER takes that long. If you're ever going to leave a review, now is the time, because I'm not gonna lie I worked so hard on this chapter that writing it wasn't even fun anymore. It was a necessary chapter though, so enjoy!_

*What happened to Jill, Chris, and Leon*

CHRIS:

~A Year and a Half Ago~

He was sitting at a gas station in his Camaro, Angie was in the back. Jill had gotten out to fill up the gas tank. His head was leaning back, they'd had a close call with a building full of zombies. They lost three men, he didn't know any of them personally, but he still felt the loss like a slap in the face. He'd been a cop before after all!

He, Matt, Carlos, and Leon had all blamed themselves. They all figured that they should have seen it coming. If it he would have went then maybe they would still have been there. Jill and Angie had both been trying to convince him that it wasn't his fault. He knew better, though.

Someone was knocking on the window, pulling him out of his thoughts. It was Mikey. He had an excited look on his face. Chris opened the door and got out. He leaned against it, the hot metal searing his skin through his shirt. He pulled his shades down to cover his eyes and said, "Yeah?"

"We just received a radio broadcast," he informed him quietly.

"Where from?" Chris inquired.

"LA," Mikey said, "they were asking for backup."

"Backup?" Chris repeated, confused. "As in they were in trouble and needed help?"

"They're one of the only cities left in the country," Mikey said. "From the sound of the message, they're going to be overrun any day now."

"We can't just stand around and let these people die," Chris murmured.

"I know," Mikey sighed. "But we can't just take our whole convoy to LA, anyways, they called in looking for already trained professionals, they apparently don't have time to train them."

Chris nodded, "Who else knows?"

"Leon, he was in the car with me when the message came through."

"What does he think?" Chris questioned.

"He wants to go," he replied.

"Claire's gonna have a hissy," Chris said, cracking his neck slightly.

Mikey blinked, "Why?"

"I'm going too."

Both of them were silent for a moment.

"Hey, Chris!" Kmart was running up to them.

"Yeah, Kay?" Chris said absently.

"Claire's looking for you, something about talking some sense into Leon. She won't tell me what for, though."

"Looks like he already tried the most dangerous job yet," Chris laughed slightly.

"What do you mean?" Kmart questioned.

"I'll tell you later," Chris promised as he walked away toward the minivan that he'd seen Claire stalk toward minutes before.

Sighing, and resigning himself to a very thorough and a very agonizing guilt trip, he made it to the vehicle, wondering how it would feel to live without a head, she was going to tare his off for agreeing with Leon. She was standing by the open trunk, her hair was blowing all over the place in the wind, giving him the impression that she was on fire. That probably didn't help with Leon, who was currently engaged in a violent argument with her and from the looks of it, he wasn't backing up, which was definitely a first.

"I don't care, Claire," Leon snapped, "they need help!"

That was when Claire noticed his presence. She turned around and sighed audibly in relief. "Chris, there you are! I need your help."

Deciding to play it safe, which meant playing stupid, Chris said, "With what?"

"Leon wants to go to LA, its insane!"

Chris was silent for a moment, and decided to remain playing ignorant. "Why?"

"They called for backup! What good is one person going to do in a city full of the undead?" Claire demanded.

Maybe if he attempted to ease her in on the idea... "Well," Chris started. "The person could save lives that would have been lost."

"They can do that here!" Claire snapped.

"If they managed to take LA, they would make a safe place for them and the people that they cared about," Chris listed. "It might be a sense of duty that calls them forth."

Claire stared at him for a moment before realization hit her like a sledgehammer. "No, damn it, not you too!"

Chris just nodded. "Don't worry! You do have faith in us, don't you?"

Claire nodded curtly, and proceeded to walk away, muttering under her breath about idiots. Chris smiled sadly over at Leon, he wasn't the same person that he'd found a year and a half before about to get the life torn out of him by an undead Rottweiler. He was more cautious, a better fighter, and, if possible, he was an even better leader. Leon had the traits that Chris respected and Chris knew he liked Claire, but for once, he was okay with that.

"She hates me," Leon informed him.

Chris walked over to him and tried for an encouraging smile, "No, she doesn't hate you, she's just angry."

"There's a difference?" Leon demanded.

Chris nodded, "Huge one."

"How long can she hold a grudge? She's never really been angry with me before."

Chris shook his head in wonder, "A long time, but she seems to have a soft spot for you. YOU might get lucky, me on the other hand... well, I'm in trouble."

Leon nodded and said, "We need to go, everyone needs to hear about this."

Chris nodded and they both walked off toward where Matt and Carlos were standing with LJ and Chase, talking quietly.

~After the Convoy Meeting~

It turned out that only five people in a convoy of fifty, had any formal training. Chris, Leon, Jill, Carlos, and Matt. And all of them wanted to go. But they knew that all of them couldn't, the convoy needed leaders, and they had all filled that spot. Matt and Carlos, who were the most experienced, were, oddly enough, elected to stay behind. They weren't happy about it, but eventually they agreed that their family came first and the convoy was their family.

After everything was settled, Chris grabbed Jill's wrist and dragged her to his car, Angie tried to follow, but Kmart had convinced her to come to the Hummer that she shared with Claire.

When Chris finally stopped, Jill spoke her first sentence. "What the hell, Chris?"

"I've gotta talk to you," he replied easily.

"You could have just said so," she informed him.

He rubbed the back of his neck, looking down at her sheepishly. "Yeah..."

"What did you need?"

"Look, I know you feel obliged to go, but I don't know..."

Jill shook her head, her comprehension coming up short. "What don't you know?"

Chris took a deep breath before saying, "I don't want you to go."

Jill shook her head, "Why not? I'm just as trained as you, and I survived Raccoon, which makes me events more experienced!"

"I know," Chris sighed. "I understand. It's just, I don't want you to."

"What is it then? You're afraid that if I get hurt, you're going to have to take care of me?"

Feeling slightly exasperated, Chris tried again, "Jill-"

Only to be cut off. "Forget it, Redfield, I've heard enough."

"So its just 'Redfield' now, is it?" Chris asked quietly.

Jill didn't even grace him with a response before she walked off. Chris swore violently under his breath before he stalked in the other direction, having just about enough of women of any kind that day.

JILL:

Chris was just... just... ugh! She didn't even have a term for what she thought of him at that moment. Somewhere between inconsiderate to a full blown jackass. She walked over to the Hummer, Leon was hiding from Claire there. Despite what he thought, yes, 'hiding' was the correct term. Unceremoniously, she opened the door on the passenger's side and plopped down.

"Something wrong?" Leon inquired.

"Yeah," Jill snapped. "Chris!"

Leon was silent for a moment. "The Redfields are both being that way, I guess. Claire is pissed off because I'm leaving."

"Chris just finished asking me to stay," Jill sighed.

"Well," Leon said, "he cares about you."

"What do you mean?" Jill questioned, her head snapping over to look at him.

Leon raised an eyebrow at her skeptically. "You don't know?"

"Don't know what?" Jill demanded irritably.

Leon was silent for a moment before rolling his eyes, "You know Claire says I'm clueless? I think you are. Chris cares a lot about you, he doesn't want to see you hurt."

Jill frowned, "He doesn't want to see me get hurt because he doesn't wanna take care of me. I survived Raccoon City! I don't need his help!"

Leon blinked in surprise. "Um... okay, Jill. You might wanna take a second look at your reasoning. Chris genuinely cares about you. You're taking this the wrong way."

Jill blinked, starting to feel seriously confused. "You know what, Leon, I... I think I need sometime alone." She opened the door and walked out, away from everyone, she desperately needed some fresh air.

~A Week Later~

LEON:

He was set and ready to go. Claire hadn't talked to him since he'd told her a week ago. When he had of hadn't blown over too well, she demanded to know why, and when he'd told her it was because of was his job to help. He saw her eyes get watery and she'd stormed away. Leon was pretty surprised that she hadn't hit him, she seemed ready to hall off and hit something. He'd asked Chris about it, Chris said that he'd gotten the same reaction.

So Leon sat in a small tightly guarded hotel in a room on a bed, with his head in his hands, he didn't want to go with her so angry at him. Deciding that he wouldn't, he got to his feet and walked toward the door, he was going to find Claire and make her see sense.

Turns out be didn't have to look very far, she was standing right in front of his door, her hand poised to knock.

"You in the psychic business, Kennedy?" She questioned.

Leon shrugged and smiled. She looked at him, her eyes still held that hurt and betrayed look as she started talking. "Chris sent me over to say that you'll be leaving in twenty minutes."

Leon nodded and Claire turned around, apparently ready to walk away. His hand shot out and grabbed her shoulder gently.

"Is there something that I can help you with?" She asked quietly.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"I've got something that I need to take care of and you need to get ready," she said without turning around.

"Claire-"

I'm serious, Leon, I've gotta go."

"I think they can live without you for the next two minutes. I'm going to have to for god knows how long," he informed her.

She stiffened, and he knew why. Him saying it out in the open, him pointing out that he was going away, possibly for good, was enough of a slap in the face for her to give pause. Silence formed between the two for what felt like forever.

Finally Leon found it in himself to break the bone crushing silence. "One conversation, then I'm gone."

She nodded and walked into the room with him. Her arms crossed in a manner that let him know she was pissed, he sat on his bed before looking up and starting. "Okay, look, I'm sorry, I really am! But I'm needed-"

"You're needed _here_!" she snapped. "We need you!"

Leon shook his head. "No, you don't. You're going to have Carlos and Matt here to keep you safe! Not to mention you! You're one kickass fighter."

"Then let me go with you," Claire suggested.

Leon's blood ran cold at the thought, immediately he shook his head. "No you're needed here."

"Wh-"

"Kmart, Angie, the other children. They look up to you!"

"Kmart," Claire snapped, "don't even mention her! You think I've taken your news bad? Every time I see her she's looks so DEPRESSED. Think about what this is doing to her!"

Leon cringed for a moment. "I know, I've already talked to her, she said that she understands," trying to lighten up the mood, he said, "the way she said I though... well I think we need to talk to LJ."

Claire didn't even crack a smile. Leon couldn't take this anymore. He got up and walked over to her, placing a hand on either of her shoulders, and looking down right into her eyes. "Please, Claire, understand! Or at least forgive me."

"Fine, but you have to promise me something," she said, looking down.

Leon dropped his hands before saying, "Anything."

"You've gotta come back to me."

Leon blinked, "Claire-"

"You said anything, Leon," she reminded him. "Screw the heroics, and the fair play and everything else. Go there, fight, and bring your ass back!"

He bit his lower lip and inhaled deeply. "Fine, I promise."

All of her composure left, tears started streaming down her cheeks and she threw her arms around him and buried her head into the crook of his neck. "And when you come back," she said quietly, "do you mind bringing my brother and Jill back with you?"

He found himself laughing at the request. "We'll all make it back. How about that?"

JILL:

It was time to leave, and she still hadn't talked to Chris. He hadn't gone out if his way to talk to her either, if anything he'd gone out of his way to avoid her.

It was time to go regardless. Leon was already in the back, which meant that she was already privileged with riding shotgun for the first day.

Leon was out like a light, claiming to be emotionally exhausted from the mental game that was Claire.

Jill inwardly glared at his still form as she settled in the driver's side. They'd been on the road for a couple of hours in complete silence. Jill normally wouldn't mind, but the silence hadn't been a comfortable one, it was painfully tense. She didn't want to be the one to break it, but she knew that she was in the wrong.

"Chris," she finally said, her voice slightly hoarse from being silent for so long.

He flinched slightly from the unexpected noise, then tensed, his knuckled went white as he held the steering wheel in a death grip. This was going to be harder than she thought.

He surprised her with an answer. "Yes?"

"Look, I'm sorry!" Jill blurted out.

Chris swerved slightly, not expecting her to be so loud. Once he was back in control of the vehicle, she heard Leon's voice. "What the hell?" he demanded groggily.

"Nothing," Chris said in his reassuring cop voice. "Go back to sleep, I know how bad Claire can be."

Leon yawned and rolled over in the back seat of the Camaro. Within seconds his breathing slowed, a telltale sign that he was asleep.

"Sorry?" Chris asked, glancing at her with a confused expression before snapping his eyes back on the road. "Sorry for what exactly?"

"I was wrong," she said, looking away from him and out the window, her eyes taking in the barren, sandy landscape that was the United States, probably the rest of the world too. "I jumped to the wrong conclusion. You weren't being a jackass by asking me to stay. I'm sorry because I know you way better than that."

Chris was silent and Jill couldn't bring herself to look at him. She felt something, large, warm, and rough cover her hand, looking down, she saw it was Chris'. He was looking at the road, but he was smiling at the same time. "Its alright," he assured her. "You know me, or you wouldn't have said that."

~A Month Later~

LEON:

LA had been a battle ground... a lost one. When he'd gotten there, there had been troops, supplies, ammo, everything. After the first month, the numbers had depleted rapidly down to half, and the zombies had gain just as many in their numbers. He'd been able to keep his promise, he, Chris, and Jill had managed to stay together so far.

But then came that day when a former general came up to them. "Redfield!" he shouted.

"Sir?" Chris said, turning around to face the man.

"We need your help vacating the prison. We're down to too few. So go and help the prisoners get outfitted. Valentine, Kennedy, time to relive some of the other troops."

CHRIS:

After the captain ordered Chris to go up to the prison and release the Prisoners, he thought the old man was loosing it. Thieves and criminals thrived in times like that. Nevertheless, he followed orders and went into the jail. Most of the prisoners were already out, but another soldier, who her knew as Smith, came up to him and said, "There's a few left in the basement. You think you can handle those?"

Chris had never liked the man's attitude, he was an arrogant asshole, but Chris wasn't about to ask for his help for getting the men, even though Chris knew that he would have saved the worst for him. Seeing the challenge in his eyes, Chris willingly accepted it. "Sure thing."

The jail was a pretty straightforward building, so the basement wasn't too hard to find. As he descended the dark stairs, the keys to the cells in his hands, he felt something was off. He reached down to his waist where his handgun was holstered, but it was too late. Something hit him from behind, Chris went rolling down the stairs. He hit the back of his head hard enough for him to see stars. His skills kicked in immediately anyway, his hand reached for his holster yet again, only to find that it was empty.

"Looking for this?" a voice drawled from a few paces away from him. Chris snapped his head in the direction of the noise and blinked real hard, trying to figure out who spoke.

Chris opened his eyes and glanced in the direction of the noise. A man was standing there flanked by two others, the leader had close cropped black hair and a long scar across his face. Chris saw that he was holding his weapon and the keys. "Guys," the man said to his cronies, "if you will."

They walked over and grabbed Chris forcefully by the arms, and dragged him to his feet. They were large, Chris might have been able to take them, but he wasn't about to risk it when someone had a gun in their hand. They shoved him toward a cage looking cell. "What the hell are you doing?" Chris demanded, struggling slightly as they opened the door.

"You made our stay here hell," the leader said, kicking him in the back, sending him sprawling inside. "We're simply repaying the favor."

"Wait," Chris said, realization dawning on him. "I'm not a cop! Do you even know what's going on out there?"

"We're aware," he drawled, "and sure you're not a cop." As one they all turned around, leaving the basement, he was there all alone.

~That Night~

LEON:

The battle was over. Everything was lost. Most people were either dead or dying, and he hadn't seen Chris or Jill. He was alone in a large city... again. This time, though, there was no Claire. 'Claire!' he thought, taking aim at a zombie that used to be a soldier. 'I've gotta get back to Claire!'

JILL:

It was all over, they'd been overrun. Almost everyone in the army had been lost, turned, and they were now after her. She searched diligently for Chris and Leon, if they were alive, they could escape together, if not... she didn't want to think about it. Sadly, there was no sign of either of them. And she knee she could just stumble around like an idiot, that was the best way to get herself killed. If Leon and Chris were okay, they would make their way toward the edge of the city. So that was where she was headed.

The only people that she'd managed to find was a family of four. She'd been looking for supplies and walked into a building. The husband/father, a strong looking man with brown hair and piercing brown eyes, had a baseball bat tightly in his hand. Jill couldn't help but smile, they still had fight in them, which was a good thing, they were going to need it.

"Its okay," Jill said as the man hesitantly lowered the bat. "I'm not gonna lie, it's rough out there, but I can get you out. You and your family WILL survival if you can do as I say."

Woman around Jill's age with long, reddish hair walked forward, a girl around seven attached to her hand. She looked weary but hopeful. "Alright... I'm Lizzy, this," she gestured to the small girl, "is Stacey," she pointed to the man, "my husband, John, and our son," a boy, maybe four walked up, "Trent."

Jill smiled at both the children before saying. "We'd better get going, but first, pack up supplies, and make sure you're able to move around quietly.

She went with Lizzy, a small kitchen was filled with water bottles, the two of them were packing up a bag, when Lizzy asked, "Are we going to Alaska?"

"Alaska?" Jill repeated. "Why would we go there?"

"There're roomers," she informed her quietly. "Roomers that the infection didn't spread there. We were going to flee there, but the terrible outbreak happened and we didn't want to risk it."

Jill was silent for a moment. "We'll talk about that when were outta here. I'm actually hoping to meet a few friends outside of the city."

"You mean there're more survivors?" She asked, excitement coloring her voice.

"I sure hope so," Jill sighed, praying that there was.

~A Week Later~

LEON:

He came walking out of a building, the street was deserted, but the telltale sound of a helicopter landing could be heard from anywhere.

Immediately he ran toward the sound, it was probably three or so streets over. There was a large field that they could have landed in. Zombies were out in the streets, shuffling toward him, but Leon shot them out of the way, running like hell. If there was a way to get out, he was going to take it, he had a promise to keep. He skidded to a stop when he saw it. A beautifully black helicopter, his heart about exploded with joy. There was no Umbrella sign on it, which was a plus. He ran over and saw that a man was getting out, he was a well built man with brown hair wearing an official looking suit, and, despite the laugh lines that were on his face, a neutral expression as he watched Leon run toward him.

"Are you infected?" he questioned, his hand reaching for his waist where a handgun sat in its holster.

Leon shook his head quickly. The man pulled his gun out anyway, and before Leon could react, he pointed and shot it. But Leon wasn't hit. He turned around, and saw that a corpse of a young woman around Claire's age was about five feet away from him, the noise of the helicopter cutting off the woman's shuffling. As he looked at her, his blood ran cold, that could have easily been Claire. Shaking the thought out of his head, he turned around and faced the man.

"Thanks for that!" he had to yell to be heard.

He merely nodded before saying, "You managed to survive this hell! We could use someone like you!"

"Who?" Leon asked.

"Someone to give you a free ride," he replied.

Leon nodded. "I'll take it."

"Let's go then," the man smiled finally, it seemed more fitting on him. "Barry Burton at your service."

**Hopefully I didn't disappoint! I own nothing!**


	15. Chapter 14

As she was walking out of the building with Kmart, she realized that she was in a mobile home. They weren't at the Desert Trail anymore, but that wad probably a good thing, with all the nous that was made, the undead would be coming from miles around.

The first person that she noticed was a man in a cowboy hat, he was on top of a large oil tanker, peering inside. Kmart led her away from the gas truck and over to a shaded area, out of the harsh heat. That was where Claire Redfield was standing, a neutral expression was masked onto her features. "I see you're awake," she called.

Alice managed a smile and nodded.

Quietly Claire looked over at her and said, "Its good to see you."

Alice nodded and said, "Likewise."

The three of them stood in silence, watching the sand move in the wind. "Where are the others?" Alice questioned finally.

"Well LJ is with Betty taking inventory of most of the medical supplies, Angie was with some of the smaller children the last time I checked, and Carlos was out digging graves."

Alice waited for her to go on, but she didn't. She blinked for a moment before looking out into the distance. She didn't think Claire not mentioning the others was a good thing, but against her better judgment, she opened her mouth and asked, "Anyone else."

Claire inhaled deeply and exhaled loudly. She took off the cap she was wearing and ran her fingers through her tangled red hair, "I didn't want to be the one to tell you," she confessed. "We got a call a year and a half back, people needed backup in LA, Chris, Leon, Jill, Carlos, and Matt all wanted to go but Carlos and Matt stayed behind, we needed people to protect the convoy."

"Alright," Alice said, "that explains a lot... why didn't you want to be the one to tell..."

She trailed off, she'd heard Carlos's, Angie's and LJ's name, Claire was right in front of her, she accounted for Leon's, Jill's, and someone named Chris's absence, that left one person.

"Claire," Alice said quietly, looking away, "where's Matt?

"We don't know exactly, I'm sorry, Alice."

She bit her lip, something that resembled grief was eating through her stomach. "What happened?"

~Flashback (Matt's POV)~

He'd volunteered for guard duty along with Carlos. Both of them were sitting on the edge of camp, looking around. He started hearing a strange noise, one that he hadn't heard in a while, and it was definitely one he couldn't identify.

"Carlos," he murmured, "do you hear that?"

Tensing, Carlos looked around, after a moment, he shook his head, "No."

"Its almost like a swishing noise..." Matt informed him, trailing off as he thought. When it clicked in, it was too late. "Helicopter!"

He and Carlos stood up but people were already jumping down from said aircraft. As they hit the ground, most of them already had a bullet in their head but the few that didn't, immediately opened fire on him, not Carlos just him. It wss a bright move, because all of his telekinetic powerless to divert the bullets from their paths, he was mostly successful, but he felt every hot piece of metal that tore through his flesh.

Carlos had opened fire on them and the other people from the convoy had started coming to their aid. It was in vain, for every person that showed up to aid Matt, three showed up opposing him. It was as if he felt the same pain that Hunter Fraiser felt when he was shot in the head, and the same pain that Johnny Evans felt when a bullet tore into his chest, right into his heart. And the immense pain of Jackie Evans who screamed as her husband went down, she dove after him, only to be peppered by dozens of rounds by different people. Matt couldn't take it anymore.

He allowed his forcefield to turn into a blast of pure energy and knocked the guards back, "STOP!" he screamed at the top of his lungs! "What the hell do you want?"

"Well I thought that was obvious, Project Matthew, we've been after you for some time now," an all too familiar voice drawled.

"And what do you want with me, Isaacs?" Matt questioned icily, though he already knew the answer.

"DNA," Isaacs answered.

Matt turned and looked around. Everyone in the convoy was looking at him, some in hope, others in fear. He knew what he had to do. "If I surrender, will you leave the convoy in peace?"

"You have my word," Isaacs answered, "they're of no use to us."

Matt took a half a step forward before he was grabbed roughly by the arm, turning around he saw that Claire was standing there. He smiled sadly at her.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

"What Alice asked me to do," was his firm reply. Shocked and confused, Claire's grip slackened and Matt walked off into the waiting arms of Umbrella.

~End of Flashback~

(Back to Alice's POV)

She kept her face neutral as she listened to the story of Matt's abduction.

"Believe me, I was all for storming Umbrella's headquarters and him back, but I couldn't, I was needed here," Claire sounded desprate, almost as if she was pleading with Alice to understand her.

Alice put a placating hand on her shoulder, "I believe you."

Claire nodded and Alice saw a glimpse of the lost eighteen year old girl that they'd found in Raccoon.

'Two weeks,' she thought sadly, he could be anywhere. She knew there wasn't any getting him back, but part of her still wanted to do exactly what Claire suggested, but she knew she couldn't.

She looked out into the distance and a weak smile came to her face as she saw a familiar Hispanic walking toward them.

"Claire!" someone yelled off in the distance.

"If you'll excuse me," Claire said, "there are somethings I need to attend to." She and Kmart both walked off, and Alice decided to go and talk to Carlos.

As soon as he saw her walking toward him, a smile crept onto his face.

"I just finished talking to Claire, but she had to go and take care of something," she told him, falling into the same stride.

"Yeah," Carlos said, "being the leader of the convoy isn't easy, a lot of responsibility, but she handles it amazingly well. In the last six months we've lost half our people, and losing Matt was a low blow to people's morale, they always saw him as a definite thing, always there. Eventually, though, they're be more of us dead than living."

Alice didn't answer, she didn't know what to say.

They were silent for a second before Carlos asked the big question, "Alice what happened, why did you leave after Detroit?"

"I didn't have a choice," she admitted, "they were using me."

Carlos was silent for a moment, apparently trying to make sense of her answer, and apparently he couldn't, "What do you mean?"

"They were tracking me, I couldn't be around you, any of you. I'd end up getting you all killed, look what happened to Angie. So I broke into an Umbrella facility, hacked into their computers and downloaded the satellite projectories. Stayed off the grid."

"And after the world ended," Carlos said, "why did you stay away then?"

"It's just better that way," Alice admitted, "better if I stay away from people."

"But you came back," Carlos said, a smile creeping on his face.

Alice felt herself smiling as well, "Yeah, I did."

She couldn't help it anymore, she'd missed all of them so much! Carlos tugged her into a comforting embrace, while Alice reveled in the feeling of human contact.

~Up In Space~

Satellite was hovering over them, snapping pictures.

~Back on Earth~

"Damn!" Alice cursed, looking down at the small watch on her waist that tracked the satellites, "What time it?"

"Chase," Carlos said, "what time is it?"

Chase, who was apparently the man in the cowboy hat ontop of the gas tanker, looked down at his watch and said, "well, Carlos, it is, uh, twelve fourteen, why do you got somewhere you gotta be?"

Carlos smiled, shaking his head before looking down at Alice.

"I guess I'm just being paranoid," she shrugged, still feeling uneasy.

~In Isaacs's Lab~

He was looking at his computer monitor, which was showing him a picture of a woman looking up at the sky where the satellite was hovering, the picture of her face was being matched up with a picture of Alice Abernathy.

The minuter said 62% match

Isaacs leaned forward toward the monitor and said, "Welcome home."

Immediately he called a meeting with Chairman Wesker, and told him of his findings.

"You're sure its her?" Wesker asked.

"Sixty two percent, too great a chance to pass up."

Wesker was silent for a moment. "If it is project Alice, she's been evading the satellite grid for years."

"I have rerouted the satellites we can reaquire the subject and she would be unaware of our surveillance and I can have a strike team ready within the hour."

"No, Wesker said, "we'll establish a positive identification first one hundred percent."

"The group she's with includes known associates," Isaacs protested. "The original project Alice is vital to my research. Her genetic structure is the key. The longer we leave her out there the greater the chance we loose her again, I can't risk that!"

"That decision isn't yours to make," Wesker said sharply. "You'll take no action until this has been discussed by the committee at the next scheduled meeting. And doctor," Wesker said, pointing his index finger at him patronizingly, "that's an order."

Isaacs nodded and left the room as Wesker flashed out.

CLAIRE:

She was sitting in the back of a truck with Mikey, Carlos, Chase, and Alice, discussing the findings that Alice had made with a red book.

"Alaska!" She demanded.

"We have to check it out," Mikey said, "we can't just ignore it."

"Have you any idea what kind of journey that would be?" she questioned.

"A long one," Chase informed her.

"And at the end of it?" She asked. "What? You have no guarantee that there's even anyone alive out there!"

"Claire, these transmissions say that-"

"They were dated six months ago!" she cut him off. "How many radio broadcasts have we responded to? How many times have we been too late?"

"The transmissions say that there is no infection up there," Alice said earnestly, "they say its isolated. They say its safe."

Claire didn't trust it, "This convoy trusts me with their live, these people don't need pipe dreams."

"Maybe that exactly what they need," Carlos butted in. "Look at then Claire, they're scared. Six months ago there were fifty of them, then forty, now there's less than thirty, they're starting to give up. They need... they need some kind of hope."

~Ten Minutes Later~

Claire and Carlos were both standing in front of the remaints of the convoy. "We have a decision to make," Claire informed them. "And its too big, too important for us to make for you."

"There's a chance that there're survivors," Carlos said, "all the way in Alaska. There is a CHANCE," he said stressing the word. "That the infection hasn't reached that far."

"We don't know for sure," Claire sighed, "so you have a choice, we stay as we are or we try for Alaska."

"For Alaska," Carlos said, motioning for them to raise their hands. Slowly everyone's hand in the convoy was raised.

"Alaska it is," Claire said quietly. People were cheering and celebrating, overjoyed that there might actually be survivors.

Claire walked over to Alice and said, "I hope you're right," before walking off.

CARLOS:

Night time was there and people were getting ready for their journey, in a tent, Carlos was informing Claire and the other about their position on resources.

"The food's virtually gone and the truck is running on empty.

"I could use another tank," Mikey admitted.

"Chase?" Carlos prompted.

"Ah shit," he said, "I got enough for maybe another hundred miles."

"Okay if we're gonna make this trip then we're gonna have to resupply." He pulled out a map and laid it in the middle.

"These are our options, the nearest safest bet is right there," he pointed to a gas station thirty miles away from their current location.

"No its empty," Alice said, "I've tried that one."

Carlos looked up at her for a moment, before returnkng to the map, "Well, maybe we could try... uh-"

"Vegas," Claire said. "Its the only place we're sure to find gasoline and supplies."

"There's a reason for that," Carlos said. "Vegas is too damn big."

"It'd be crawling with them sons a bitches," Chase said.

"We have drained every small town dry over the last six months. We've gotta hit a big city."

"She's right," Alice sighed.

'Great Carlos,' thought, 'the women have crazy!'

"Vegas is our only bet."

~Back In Isaac's Lab~

If Wesker wanted to be like that, FINE! One trip to the computer completely changed Wesker's outlook, well, not really, but the voice recording that Isaacs doctored gave him an order to take a strike team to capture project Alice.

He knew they would be going to Vegas, it was the only sure place to find more fule and supplies. He decided that if he was going to capture Alice, he might as well test his experiments, because hostility had its benefits.

That was why he found himself in a chopper, hearing toward the large city, he was actually excited to see how his experiment would work.

ALICE:

When they got to Vegas, she saw tthe sign, "Welcome to Fantastic Las Vegas" it wasn't so fantastic anymore. All of the building's windows were gone, and they all looked as though they were going to fall over the moment someone breathed on them too hard. But they wouldn't fall too far, all of them were covered in sand so high that some of the buildings were completely buried.

"I don't see anything," Carlos murmured.

"I don't sense anything," Alice said, her eyes darting everywhere at ones while they crawled through the city, looking wearily out for the corpses that were bound to be somewhere.

"The birds must have went through the city block by block, pecked it clean."

ALICE:

They found the way to the gas pumps thanks to LJ, who had apparently been to Vegas and lost two thousand dollars. There was one problem: a huge metal container was blocking their path.

"Damn it!" She heard Claire curse, "Spread out! We're going to have to move it!"

"Chase," she said, "I'ma need a lookout," she pointed to the replica of the Eiffel tower. "There."

Chase looked at her for a moment before sighing, "Great."

Alice, who had a had feeling, moved toward the container, putting her ear toward it, listening. Mikey was coming forward with the winch. "Wait," she cautioned him.

They paused, waiting for her signal. That was when she heard the movement. "Get back!" she yelled, backing up quickly to a safe distance before pointing her weapon at the crate.

Deformed undead came running, not shuffling, RUNNING, out of it. Immediately everyone opened fire at them. But they seemed harder to kill compared to the normal shuffling kind. Everything got out of control and fast.

She whipped out her blades and started hacking at them, decapitation quite a few. She saw a girl running from one of them and she was about to lose the race. Immediately she ran after it, slicing it's neck, but too late, the girl had already been bit.

She took out two more, one with a roundhouse kick, the other with her blades.

Alice saw that a good portion of the zombies were chasing the members into a sandy faded open building, immediately she followed, taking out two on her way in, and killing the rest of them in a matter of minutes. As she took her knives back and walked toward the fight again, she froze. She couldn't move at all, she had a good ideas of how.

She reached out with her mind, feeling for the offending satellite.

ISAACS:

"Sir," one of his assistants said, "she's fighting the condition."

"Boost the control signal," he ordered.

The screen went fuzzy. "What is it?"

"The satellite, some kind of malfunction," the assistant informed him, immediately trying to fox the problem.

"How long?" Isaacs demanded.

"She should be coming back on line in fifteen seconds."

"Three... two... now."

Her vision came onto the screen, she was on stairs. "Where the hell is she going," Isaacs questioned.

He got his answer as soon as she opened the last door and came out to a very familiar roof.

"Shut her down!" Isaacs commanded.

"She's still coming," the assistant said, panicking.

"Now!" Isaacs thundered.

"Oh shit," was the only thing that the assistant was able to say before Alice made it to their tent, and she looked pissed.

ALICE:

Putting a bullet through every single head that was controlling her felt like justice to her. She raced out of the tent after Isaacs. The sneaky bastard had made it farther than she would have thought possible, Alice raced over, but stopped as she saw something that was more fitting than her killing him, a zombie was right behind him, he should meet one of his own hellish experiments. He didn't realize it was coming until he was at the helicopter, the thing too a good chunk clean out of his neck before the pilot shot it in the head.

"The anti-virus," Isaacs croaked as the helicopter lifted into the air, "get me the anti-virus!"

Alice raised her weapon, prepared to take the chopper down, but she hesitated, she already had an idea forming in her head.

She heard footsteps behind her as Carlos, Claire, and Kmart came running up. "Why didn't you shoot it?" Kmart demanded.

"Because," Alice said simply, "you're not driving all the way to Alaska. Now lets see where this chopper goes."

"We lost quite a few people," Carlos confided as they were walking.

"Who?" Alice asked.

"Chase and Mikey were the only ones that you know, but seven others as well."

"We shouldn't have went to Vegas," Claire mumbled sadly.

"Don't go blaming yourself," Carlos said, putting a comforting arm around Claire's shoulders. "It was the only option, we didn't have a choice."

"They trusted me," Claire said, "I failed them, all of them."

"No," Alice said, remembering what Matt had told her when they'd gotten out of the Hive. "Its the corporation not you, there's nothing more you could have done. We're gonna take them down so they can't do this to anyone else."

MATT:

He heard the chopper touch down and seconds later Isaacs stepped through to his holding room. He was clasping a bloody hand over a bloody wound. "Project Matthew, its time to take precautions."

Matt took a step back, but Isaacs left the room, sealing the door shut. He smelt something off, but he didn't know what, that was until he breathed in too deep and he was getting drowsy, two seconds later, Matt hit the floor, unconscious.

ALICE:

They were sitting on a hill, overlooking the seemingly innocent house that was the cover of yet another underground Umbrella base.

"How do you plan on getting in?" the question came from Carlos, who was standing beside her, looking through a pair of binoculars.

"Simple really," Alice said glancing back at the gas truck, "I plan on using my gift from Umbrella."

~Ten Minutes Later~

They were all in vehicles, watching as the gas truck sped down the hill, thanks to Alice's telekinesis, no one was driving it.

Alice watched as the truck took down a good hundred zombies before she made it turn on its side. 'That's it,' she thought as the curious zombies were walking to the source of the noise, 'that's it come on, a little closer.'

She reached out with her mind and ignited the gas tank on the vehicle. There may not have been a lot of rule left in the tank of the tanker, but there was enough to make one hell of an explosion.

"Let's go!" Alice commanded, pushing the gas pedal down to the floor, the Hummer that she was driving lurched forward, causing Carlos, Claire, Angie, and Kmart, to grip the seats tightly to prevent themselves from going backward.

"Damn, Alice," Carlos cursed, "where the hell did you get your driver's license?"

"The DMV like everyone else," she said purposely ignoring the fact that the question was purely rhetorical.

Alice saw the fence coming up, and instead of slowing down, she sped up, the jolt from ramming into the dense wasn't a gentle one, everyone lurched forward, Carlos, being the tallest, actually headbutted the windshield. The fence didn't put up much of a fight, it collapsed and Alice stormed through, the other vehicles following her. Everyone got out and raced up the steps, the helicopter was there, she smiled, they were really going to get away.

When they got to the heliopad, everyone jumped in, Carlos and Claire at the controls. Alice, however, stayed where she was on the ground, reaching over, she put the red book in Kmart's lap.

"You're not coming?" She demanded.

Alice shook her head and looked at both her and Angie, "Take care of them!"

Angie and Kmart both nodded, sorrowful looks on both of their faces. The helicopter started to rise, Alice backed away, smiling at them reassuringly and waving, wishing them all the luck in the world.

When they were high enough in the air, Alice turned around and started to head back down, she had some serious revenge to extract.

ISAACS:

Wesker's assistant was starting to get in his nerves. Sure he'd been a pain in the ass before, peering over his shoulder every five seconds, but Isaacs could take that, he had nothing to hide when it came to his work, the weasel even knew about Project Matthew, but when he was trying to save himself from dying of the T-virus, and he comes in and exclaimes, "What have you done?" it was bound to get annoying.

"I was bit," he snapped back, "what the hell do you think I'm doing?"

"Do you know the consequences to using so much?"

Isaacs looked around and saw that he'd injected him,self with about ten or so shot of the virus, but he knew what he was doing. "Yes," Isaacs said, annoyance coloring his voice, "I know exactly what the consequences are!"

"You don't need to worry about them," the assistant said casually, "I have a message from Wesker."

Isaacs looked at the man questioningly, but instead of answering him with words, the man pulled out a hand gun and shot him in the head.

Isaacs fell to the ground, the pain was terrible, but, oddly enough, he didn't feel his life being sucked out of him, the pain was fading, he was HEALING!

Opening his eyes, he saw the assistant had turned around. He got to his feet and examined his hand, it was terribly deformed and there were tentacles growing out of them instead of fingers.

Apparently feeling that something was off, the assistant turned around, he made a face of horror and disgust right before Isaacs impaled him in the eyes and the mouth with the tentacles.

ALICE:

She walked down from the heliopad and toward the building, a deep trench caught her eye before she went. Walking over, she looked down into it and what she saw filled her with a deep sense of disgust, sadness, and anger. It was her, fifty times over, all in red dresses and biker shorts, all with the same hair, eyes, and expressions of surprise and pain, and all dead. Some had been sitting around in the desert sun longer than others.

She couldn't stand it any longer, turning away, she walked inside, hoping that Isaacs wasn't a zombie, zombies couldn't feel pain, and she wanted to torture this man to the brink of death, bring him back just to do it again. She marched into the house, it was a simple house, with a kitchen, a couple of bedrooms, it even achieved a homey feel that the mansion never did. She before the apocalypse, anyone that didn't know Umbrella would have taken the house for just that, but it wasn't before the apocalypse and Alice knew Umbrella.

Thankfully she didn't have to look too hard for the entrance, as soon as she stepped inside, a table that had been in the middle of the living room split apart, and a trapdoor opened under it. Slowly she walked forward, raising her weapon, ready for almost anything that came her way.

Inching forward, she saw that the way was clear so far and she didn't sense anything. She walked down the stairs and into a disaster.

She couldn't tell what room she was in, everything was strewn everywhere, canisters of what resembled the anti-virus were everywhere, holes were in the wall and she couldn't stave off the feeling that something was watching her.

Seconds later she realized that something was indeed watching her. A light flickered and she heard a small girl's voice.

"Hello, Project Alice."

Immediately Alice had her gun pointed in the face of a holographic representation of the AI.

"Who are you?" Alice demanded, lowing her gun. "The White Queen, the Red Queen's twin, I guess you would say."

"Oh I met your sister," Alice assured the girl, "she was a homicidal bitch." Rain's exact words.

"My programing is a bit different than hers, but one thing that we are both set up to do is contain the virus. Dr. Isaacs returned, infected by a creature that was infected with a new kind of serum derived from your blood, and has infected himself with massive amounts of the anti-virus, he has mutated, and he must be stopped."

"Where is he?" Alice questioned.

"Through that door, I have him contained in the lower levels but I won't be able to hold him longer," the White Queen answered, gesturing to a sealed door behind her. Immediately the door opened, revealing a terribly familiar room.

Alice took a step forward, but paused. "Matthew Addison, where is he?"

"Room 42b, second level," she answered automatically.

Alice blinked, "Wait, he's HERE?"

The White Queen nodded.

"Alright, I'll take care of Isaacs, you take care of Matthew Addison."

The AI nodded, Alice walked forward.

"Oh and Alice," the Queen said.

"What?"

"Good luck."

Alice nodded in appreciation before stepping forward, as soon as she entered, the door closed behind her, sealing her in.


	16. Chapter 15

MATT:

When he woke up on the ground of a small room, he could scarcely remember his name... 'Matt,' he thought confidently, 'that's my name.'

That's about all he knew though. He didn't open his eyes until he heard someone calling his name. "Matthew?"

"Hmm?" he asked, sitting up, cracking his neck.

He saw a little girl with long black hair and a white dress on. He didn't know her, so he jumped to his feet and backed up.

"Who are you?" He demanded.

"The White Queen, the artificial intelligence for this facility," she answered.

"Where am I?"

"In an underground lab facility for Umbrella," she explained, "you came in to prevent further killings of your convoy."

"My convoy? Why was I a part of a convoy?"

"The most logical answer would be because fighting off attacks of the infected is easier with more people."

"Infected? Nevermind," Matt said, "why was Umbrella after me?"

"They needed your DNA, since you were infected with the T-virus, they wanted to experiment with your blood. Project Alice was the primary target, but they couldn't find her."

"The T-virus? And who's Alice?" Matt asked, holding his head, it felt like he should know what they were but he didn't.

"Sir," the Queen said, "I could either explain everything to you right now, or we can help your friend."

'Friend,' Matt thought. He could use a friend, maybe they could explain everything better than the Queen could. "Alright," Matt said, "lets go."

ALICE:

She slowly walked down the hallway, her flash light and handgun searching for anything out of the ordinary. Slowly she turned, looking, when she saw movement out the corner of her right eye, instantly she turned and pointed the light in the samedirection, nothing was there.

Slowly she walked down the hall in the direction of the movement, at the end of the dark hallway, there was a large room, with a watery globe in the middle, emitting the only light that she'd seen so far. A person was sitting in the middle of the sphere, and Alice had an idea of who it was. She walked forward slowly and saw that she was correct in her assumptions. Her clone was floating around, her mouth was around a tube so she could breathe. Curiously and cautiously, she put her hand against the globe, feeling the dampness.

While she was distracted, she detected another sign of movement to her left. She walked toward the movement, taking pointing her weapon in front of her, ready to shoot as needed. The movements were coming from everywhere, all around. She was attempting to follow them but even she wasn't fast enough. The dim light flickered and Alice turned around, but it was the wrong way, because she heard a throaty roar and she was knocked forward from behind. She flew into the watery globe and her clone woke up, frightened. Immediately, Alice got to her knees, pulled out one of her blades and threw it at the thing that used to be Dr Samuel Isaacs, all he was now was a severely warped version of the doctor.

It lodged into his shoulder, and he yelped in pain. He ran out of the room. Before Alice had time to chase after him, the watery gone busted and her clone fell out. Alice barely had time to catch her before she fell to the floor. She pushed the hair out of her clone's face and watched helplessly as she gasped for breath that wasn't coming. After a last strangled cry, her head slumped down and she collapsed. Alice placed the clone on the ground, removed her jacket, and put it over the clone's body, covering her head.

She felt severely pissed. She had, in a strange way, watched herself die, all because Isaacs. Standing up straight, she grabbed her remaining blade, and stalked out of the room, and into the direction of Isaacs. She walked down a dark hallway, and saw that drops if blood were on the floor, along with her other blade. Assured that she was going in the right direction, she walked on. The hall opened into a disturbingly familiar room, one that she was certain she'd NEVER see this room again, considering that it was in ruins in Raccoon City.

It was the living room of the Spencer Mansion. Walking over to the table, she saw that the wedding picture of her and Spence was still there same frame and all.

Suddenly she saw a reflection through the silver frame, ducking and rolling out of the way, she was hit with a sudden sense of déjà vu. Only difference: Matt wasn't trying to kill her when she'd seen his reflection.

Isaacs smashed the table in half and punched a hole in the wall. Alice jumped back as he swung at her. She held her knife up, and they both circled each other, waiting for the other to make the first move. Isaacs lunged at her, and Alice sliced her knife up, cutting deep into monster's flesh, he roared in pain as she jumped back again. He stepped forward, she she brought her knife forward. Isaacs caught her wrist, Alice cried out in surprise, and he flung her backward.

She did a summersault, getting to her feet gracefully, her blade landed in the wood a few feet to her right. She turned in time to see Isaacs chest wound, that she words so hard to administer, was rapidly closing.

He looked at her, and she imagined that if he would have been able to, he would have been smiling smugly. "You can't kill me," he informed her.

Alice lunged for the knife, but Isaacs shot out some strange and disgusting tentacles, they wrapped around her neck, quickly and effectively cutting off her airflow. She opened her mouth up wide, gasping.

Desperately, she reached down, trying to grab the knife, but Isaacs tightened his grip around her throat, and she gasped aloud again, fighting tooth and nail for just another gasp of air. Two of the tentacles that weren't choking the life out of her, were inching toward her eyes. Shaking her head, trying to make her eyes harder to get at, she stomped on the board, and felt it give out on one side and the knife flew into the air. She snatched it into her hand and sliced the tentacles.

She snatched the offending tentacles from her neck and clutched her throat, coughing, trying to get her breathing back in order.

He sent more tentacles at her, but Alice stopped them, creating a shield right in front of her. Her pupils dilated and she created a wave of energy, tearing up everything in its path. Isaacs was blasted backward, and was rammed into a wall.

He got up to his feet, and Alice attempted to charge at him. She only made it two steps before she was hit back with a wave of force that made the one she produced seem like a gentle tap. She was flung back, she hit the wall, but she went through it instead of just being stopped by it.

She hit the ground with a sickeningly loud thud. Her eyes were tightly shut. When she opened them, she wished that she hadn't. She was in a room that brought back too many memories, and not one of them good. She was in a room made of what seemed to be glass, it was lit up all around. Seemingly harmless. It was a replica of the same room that One and three others died.

She got to her feet as Isaacs ran into the room. She walked forward and slashed at him, cutting across his chest. He raised his hand and backslapped her, she slid down the room, landing on her back. Isaacs walked forward as Alice scrambled backward.

"I always thought you were the future," he said, looking down at her, "but I was wrong. I am the future!"

As dire as her situation was, she still found it in her to laugh. And shake her head, "No, you're just another asshole, and we're both gonna die down here."

She saw the laser coming forward, already turning into the net shape. Isaacs faltered and turned around, and watched as the laser sliced him into tiny pieces.

ALICE CLONE:

She was alive. Immediately she pulled the jacket away from her face, and unsteadily got to her feet. She heard noise coming from a computer across the room. "I am the future!"

"No. You're just another asshole, and we're both gonna die down here."

Hurriedly she started tapping keys on the keyboard. She had no idea how she knew what to write, but she did. The laser was getting closer and closer, it went through the monstrous figure that almost killed her, and stopped just centimeters shy of the original Alice.

MATT:

He was walking down a dark hallway, the White Queen leading him toward his 'friend' named Alice. If he only knew who that was. They made it to a messed up room, it might have been nice if it didn't resemble an earthquake and a twister disaster in one. "What the hell happened here?"

The White Queen answered as a woman stumbled through a large hole in the wall. "A fight between Dr. Isaacs and Alice Abernathy."

As soon as the woman saw him she paused. "Matt?"

Matt nodded. She ran toward him and embraced him, her arms wrapping around his neck in a death grip.

"Are you Alice?" He questioned as she let go of him.

She raised an eyebrow. "Do I look that different?"

"I don't know," he admitted, "I woke up maybe twenty minutes ago, and I was lucky to know my name, my head is killing me, my hands are STILL cuffed, and I am so fucking confused that its gone beyond annoying."

"Here," she said, looking down at his cuffs, he heard the click as the locks came undone. They fell to the floor, and he was sure he'd never felt freer.

Once his hands freed, she said, "What do you know?"

Matt told her his conversation with the White Queen. Alice looked over at the AI and said, "What happened to him?"

"Dr Isaacs gassed his room, it was meant to incapacitate him for an indefinite amount of time. A week or so, but the doctor didn't think about the infection running through his veins when he administered the gas. It had the same effect that the gas that my sister computer administered to you before you entered the Hive."

"What infection are we talking about?" Matt snapped, Alice seemed to understand what was going on, lucky her! He didn't have the faintest idea.

"I'll explain everything in a moment," she assured him before turning back to the queen. "How long will he be like this?"

"I... I don't know," she admitted, "it was a new gas,never been tested. The theory was permanent memory loss, but on normal humans, not like him."

Matt thought that this was going a bit far. "What do you mean normal?"

"We need to go up to Isaac's lab," Alice said, "I'll explain everything on the way."

"Alright," Matt said finally, "the Queen said you were my friend. How long have we known each other?"

"Since this Hell started," Alice sighed, "we went through the Hive together," she explained that the Hive was the underground headquarters for Umbrella, and that he was with a group that was going to take Umbrella down. She was head of security. She told him how they were the only ones to make it out alive and into Raccoon.

"You're telling me that we're both infected with the virus that turns people into the undead?" he questioned as they opened the door to a large lab.

Alice nodded before quickly looking around.

"Then why aren't we dead?" he questioned. "Like Rain and JD?"

"We bonded with it," she answered, "on a cellular level."

Matt blinked and said, "There is someone to your left," he said in a barely audible tone.

Alice nodded, and whipped out a wickedly sharp looking knife, and darted forward, but she only moved maybe a foot before stopping. "You're alive?"

A woman with nothing more than a jacket on walked forward, her hair was wet as if she'd just taken a shower. But that definitely wasn't the first thing he noticed. It was Alice, there were two Alices.

"What the hell?" Matt demanded backing up.

"Take it easy," the fully clothed Alice said, "nothings going to hurt you, she's my clone! Alice27."

Matt stood there stunned, "They're CLONING you!?"

"Well," Alice 27 said, "not just her..."

"What do you mean?" he asked shakily, though he had a feeling that he already knew the answer.

"You have clones here too," she said.

"How many exactly?"

"Come with me," she said, gesturing for them to follow.

They walked further into the room, there was a steel door at the back, but it opened as they walked in. "I'll leave you alone," the White Queen said, "I have some synthesizing to prepare for."

Matt added her reason for leaving to the rapidly growing list of things he didn't know about, and followed the girls into the next room.

He couldn't form a coherent thought at what he saw, let alone say something. It was a vast room, so large that he could barely see the back, and the bottom... well he wouldn't want to fall. And every six feet or so there was a large watery globe, housing a person, they seemed to be asleep. Every single one of them either looked like Alice or like him.

He just stared, was this normal for him? Was he responsible for any of this? Well he wasn't okay with it now, so he thoroughly doubted that he would have been okay with it with his memories.

"Alice," he said, finally managing to snag his voice. "How... what... who?"

She sighed, and turned around to face him, her eyes were almost pleading and he heard a note of desperation in her voice as she talked to him. "Matt, listen to me," she commanded unnecessarily, she already had his full attention, "I know you don't remember anything, and this is a lot to take in, but you gotta work with me. Is anything coming back to you? Anything at all?"

He closed his eyes and thought long and hard. "No," he sighed finally. "I can't remember anything."

She put a pair of comforting hands on either side of his arms, his mind raced as a scene played into his mind.

_He was in a room filled with fire, three severely deformed people were crawling at him while he was on his back under a table. One seemed to be about to take a bit out of his leg as someone snatched him away from the threat. Both hands on either side of his arms, it was Alice._

"Wait," he said taking a step back, pinching the bridge of his nose, "You... I remember you saved my life." He told her what he saw and she nodded.

"Okay, that's a good thing!" She assured him, "It means that you'll hopefully regain your memory."

"When?" Matt asked.

"When what?" Alice questioned.

"When did you save me?"

"That was in the Hive, we were surrounded."

Matt nodded. "Alright, well that's one down."

**I was so happy with all of the reviews I got, I decided to update early! I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review on your way out?**

**My sister and I were talking and she told me that in the first movie it was Matt who she saw when she was looking at the picture frame. I agree with her, but was it?**


	17. Chapter 16

Wesker walked into the surveillance room, and over to the man in charge in the room. He didn't know his name, and didn't care. "Report," Wesker ordered in his normal monotone voice.

"Sir," the head said, "about half an hour ago, we lost contact with some of our perimeter agents."

"How many have we lost?" Wesker asked, his voice didn't betray the fact that he was feeling a stab of annoyance.

"All of them," he answered, his voice quavered in nervousness.

"And you waited thirty minutes to tell me?" He said, his voice held a sharp edge to it, letting the man know that he expected a good reason for not being notified of a security breach immediately.

"We thought it was a simple communications problem," the head said, "I didn't want to disturb you with a false alarm."

He walked over to the nearest man on a computer and said, "Get me the head soldier."

The man quickly brought up the image of an older man on the screen. The head told the elderly man, "This is chairman Wesker."

The head soldier nodded his head in Wesker's direction and said, "Sir."

"Report your situation," Wesker ordered.

"Everything is quiet here," the soldier said calmly.

"No sign of intruders?" Wesker said as if to clairify what he was asking.

The man went rigid, and remained silent.

"Well talk!" Wesker snapped, his composure slowly slipping.

When the man opened his mouth, but no words came out, instead blood spewed all over the place.

"Sir," one of the computer men said, "elevator three is moving!"

"I want that front entrance blocked," Wesker commanded coolly.

Two people were crawling through a vent silently. Matthew23 and Alice34. They'd already sent the elevator down as planned, they on the other hand were taking the harder way into the facility.

They dropped to the ground silently. The guards were all looking intently at the elevator. As it hit zero, dinged, and opened to show its emptiness, Matthew and his companion leisurely walked forward.

One guard looked over his shoulder, noticing the two of them advancing. Immediately he and the people around him spun around. Matthew couldn't see their faces from behind their black masks, but he was willing to bet they had seriously wide eyes. They didn't have time to pull weapons out, Alice already four spiky disks in her hand, and with a quick flick of her wrist, they were in the air. The silver metal shone beautifully in the dim light before they found their mark. One man went down for each blade, either from a wound to their neck, or a pierced helmet.

Before the rest of them could recover, Alice and Matthew jumped forward, holding a pair of blades in hand. The landed on the closest two people, their blades piercing the enemies armour. When Matthew extracted the blades, blood dripped down the metal, painting it red. He didn't have much time to concentrate on the first man he'd ever killed, he was much to busy jumping out of the way as another man arrayed in the same black uniform as everyone else came rushing toward him.

He realized something as he reached out and grabbed the man by the neck, if he didn't think of them as anymore than suits, it made them easier to take down. He flicked his wrist abruptly and the man's neck snapped immediately. Matthew let go of him, but before he could hit the ground, the bottom of Matthew's boot made contact with his torso, and the man's corpse went flying back into three men that had been rushing forward to take them down. Before they could get up, Matthew ran forward, blades whirring in his hands. He jumped over Alice, who was engaged in combat with another three guards, and impaled two of the men through their armored chests. The third was trying to stand again when Matthew kicked him in the chin, his neck cracked and he did a baclflip through the air, landing in a broken heap a few feet from where he'd originally been.

Matthew straightened up, ready to take on more of the guards, but there were none. He blinked in surprise, and got up, cracking his neck as he did so. Alice smiled at him triumphantly. Just when he was starting to think that Wesker's security wasn't as good as they had anticipated, he heard the sound of muted footsteps echoing around the grey, and now bloody, concrete room. Reflexively he spun around and saw that yet another group of soldiers were marching forward.

For a second it was silent, the fresh batch of soon-to-be victims were obviously shocked that two people armed with only blades managed to take out an entire squad of Umbrella trained guards. He and Alice shared a quick glance at each other out of the corner of their eyes, both nodded slightly, a movement that would have been caught by sharp eyes. Matthew reached for his telekinetic powers, as soon as he felt the pull, he unleashed a torrent of power into the area where the soldiers were standing. With their combined power, everything was blown away, even the cement was torn away from the ground, flying into the air, causing just as much damage as the blast itself did on the soldiers.

He felt a certainty in his gut that they wouldn't be a threat any longer. He was about to ask Alice if using her powers had expelled all of her energy, when he heard the pitterpattering of . them. The both of them spun around and saw a league of men with large weapons and plastic shields with the Umbrella logo emblazoned on it. Yet another batallion of soldiers. He took half a step forward before hhe heard a gun shot, not half a second later he felt it, go in through his back and come out his chest. The pain was immense, but past it, I saw that Alice had been hit as well. He wanted to cry out for her, but his voice failed him, he dropped to his knees, sat there a moment, looking up at his killer before flopping down on the floor, darkness clouding his eyesight. He suddenly felt very cold, and he could feel his breathing slow down. He blacked out for good as three sets of feet walked in the room from an elevator on the side.

Alice35, Alice50, and Alice42 were all standing at the doorway peering at the crowd of men who were standing over the two clone corpses. "Hey, boys," Alice35 said, pair of blades twirling in her hands. They looked up at the three of them. "That's no way to treat guests."

As she spoke, the two Alices behind her opened up a rain of rapid fire on the guards, who, in their surprise, immediately fell. Of course that wasn't enough, the rest of the squad opened up fire quickly enough, not that any of the Alices were there when it happened. One second they were there, the next they were gone, dodging bullets. The men were extremely accurate shots, but each Alice was just faster. They gracefully rolled through the crowd, as if they were dancing with the men. Each of their opponents fell, whether it was to a stab wound, a bullet to the neck or throat, or to a snapped neck.

As fast as they were, sometimes they weren't fast enough. Alice50 saw a man coming up behind Alice35, who was busy breaking a man's neck. His gun was trained on her head, but, before he could pull the trigger, Alice50 was there, she shoved the other Alice put of the way just in time for the guard to pepper her own body with holes. Just before she blacked out, she heard Alice35 scream in outrage.

Now on a vengeance streak, the two remaining Alices made quick work of the guards, killing each and everyone of them.

Wesker watched what was happening on one of the computers in the cramped security room. He felt his irritation rise as he saw the two different clones. He was frowning, but you could scarcely tell behind his dark sunglasses. Matthew Addison and Alice Abernathy were really more trouble than they were worth.

"Seal off the first floors," he ordered in a cool and collected voice, just starting to regain complete control over his composure, "then flood them."

"But sir!" the head of the facility's security protested. "Our men are still up there!"

Wesker lost it, he pulled his gun out in annoyance and shot him in the temple without so much as blinking. The computer room was silent as the man fell to the clean floor, his blood creating a puddle around him. Wesker took a deep breath, feeling better, and now under control of his anger again. He looked around at the room, the assistants just staring at him instead of following his instructions. The inefficiency and the incompetence here was staggering! "Any more questions?" Wesker asked coolly.

That seemed to jar the pathetic excuses for employees back to reality. All of them turned back around and immediately started following his orders.

Wesker may have sealed off the facility, but it made no difference. He'd forgotten about the windows. That became all too obvious when he heard the noise of gunfire above him. Looking up, he saw two Alice clones, and a Matthew clone falling toward him, ropes attached to them. The explosion of gunshots was heard before his petty group of assistants started falling. Immediately the surviving few took out their hand guns and started returning fire. Wesker pulled out his own two and aimed for the Alice in the middle. He fired four shots at her, before he finally managed to snag a bullet to the head.

He didn't have any time to feel smug about killing a clone, two were still on their way down and the remaining Alice had something in her hand that resembled an Umbrella issue grenade. Wesker had time to say, "Damn," under his breath before she threw it. Not bothering to shout a warning to the Umbrella employees, he dove under one of the desks, not two seconds later, a deafening explosion roared throughout the room, searing his skin. It took all of his willpower not to curse aloud.

When the heat died down, Wesker scrambled out from under the desk, and assumed a defensive position, he couldn't see anything through the thick white room that consumed the floor, so his heightened senses were straining for the slightest sign of life.

To his right he heard something that resembled glass breaking under someone's foot. Automatically, Wesker shot in that general direction. He heard a sharp intake of breath, and allowed himself a small smile. He was one hell of a shot.

He walked over and saw that he'd taken down the other Alice. Wesker cursed. That meant Matthew was around the small room somewhere, he would have preferred not getting close to Matthew's clone, the T-virus enhanced his strength. He walked to the edge of the room and looked out, the clones had invaded the entire facility, he saw that they were executing his employees, not that they weren't trying to fight back, they were, but it wasn't like they were any match for T-virus infected clones. Even Wesker grudgingly admired their abilities.

He felt the cold metal of a knife laying on his throat. A male voice rang menacingly in his ear, "You ready to die?"

Wesker smiled before he rammed his elbows into the man's ribs, stepping to the side as he fell backward. Not giving Matthew a chance to recover, Wesker planted two bullets into the man's brain.

It was time to leave. Ignoring all of the carnage around him, he walked down the stairs and past dozens of clones who were too preoccupied with messing up the facility to pay him any attention. A few minutes of walking through the maze, he found himself in a large room, with a huge open roof that was staring into the darkening sky, right in the middle was a large black aircraft that he was going to use to make his escape. Immediately he took remote that belonged to it out of his pocket. He pressed the button that read 'open' immediately a door started coming down out of the sleek black metal. Not wasting any time, he rushed forward.

Wesker had just made it inside when the first bullet hit, bouncing off the incredible armor that the ship was made with, it barely phased him he looked back and saw, as the door was shutting ten Alices, and about as many Matthews, but he heard the footsteps of more on the way. He walked over to the controls and sat down on the plush chair.

Two seconds later he was in the air despite the bullets that were ricocheting off the sides of his getaway vehicle. He smiled down at the clones and saluted them before racing into the air, the bangs of the bullets hitting the armor echoing around the room.

As he was racing away from the facility, he pulled out another remote. 'Purge' was written across the top. He pressed the green button that read 'purge facility' he heard the beeping as it counted down the seconds from five. A ball of energy started emitting from the building, getting larger and larger before it shot inside of the ground, leaving a gaping hole that was red around the rim because of the heat.

MATT:

He and Alice walked quietly out of the back of the aircraft toward the blonde hairs creep that was flying it. Weaker had been too absorbed in killing every living thing in the facility that he hadn't noticed them until Alice had her handgun pointing at his temple.

"Any last words?" she questioned, the hate that contempt that she felt for Umbrella thick in her voice.

Wesker didn't move, and the dreadful smile that was gracing his features didn't leave. Matt, who had been standing back, content in letting Alice kill the man, stepped forward. It was too late, though. Wesker whipped around in his chair, his speed was inhuman, and injected a syringe in Alice's neck, hurriedly injecting the fluid. She fell to the floor writhing around in what appeared to be pain.

Matt rushed forward before she even hit the floor, but Wesker was already there, the heel of his hand connected with lower portion of his ribcage. Matt felt the cracks of his bones giving away before he went flying backward right into the back of the ship maybe fifteen feet away. He hit hard, his head spinning from the painful impact.

"What-what have you done," Alice gasped as Matt attempted to get to his feet.

He jumped to his feet, hunched over slightly from the pain.

"Umbrella is taking back their investment," Wesker said, his voice patronizing. Matt felt a vaguely familiar sense of rage. He may not have gotten his memory back, but it wouldn't have mattered, all thoughts drowned out of his head other than the fact that Wesker was hurting Alice.

Matt rushed forward just as Wesker threw Alice. Automatically Matt caught her still writhing form and set her down. He rushed forward toward Wesker, who braced himself for Matt's impact, which was apparently a lot harder than he'd anticipated. Wesker was knocked to the ground. Matt kicked him hard enough to feel bones give before leaning down and punching him in the jaw, feeling it dislocate. He brought his fist down again, but before it could make any impact, Wesker caught it. Before Matt could react, Wesker punched his already extremely sensitive ribs, making him shout out in protest. He took advantage of Matt's moment of pain by jumping to his feet with his inhuman speed and uppercutting him in the jaw, sending him flying backward, beside a sickly looking Alice.

The impact knocked the breath from him, and he felt a stabbing pain in his left shoulder, which took the brunt of the impact, that was definitely broken. Matt still tried to scramble to his feet, and Wesker, who was apparently getting sick of his persistence, pulled a sickeningly sharp looking knife, four inches or so and threw it at him. It hit in the lower portion of his stomach. He cried out in pain, and Wesker smiled as if the sound was music to his ears. "Any last words?" He asked, still smiling his sinister smile.

"Thank you," Alice said, her voice shaky.

"For killing you?" Wesker questioned, his head leaning to one side for a moment in confusion.

Matt looked at Alice through his pain and saw that she was shaking her head. "For making me human."

Wesker raised his gun, obviously aimed at Alice's chest, Matt tried and failed to get to his feet, desperate to protect her.

BEEP BEEP! An angry red light started to flash, and a calm female voice came over an intercom. "Please pull the aircraft up."

Matt looked out the windshield and saw that they were coming disturbingly close to a large snowy mountain. Wesker immediately turned around and raced toward the controls but Matt knew it was too late. He didn't know for sure if that needle had taken away Alice's powers or not, but he wasn't about to risk it. He pulled the knife out of his stomach, ignoring the pain, and rolled over ignoring his shoulders protests. He covered Alice's body with his own, and just in time, they crashed just as Wesker got to the front.

Heat seared his skin all over, and Matt held onto Alice tighter, making sure that she wasn't touched, and the noise was beyond deafening, made even worse for his acute senses.

As soon as it started it was all over, the last thing Matt remembered doing was rolling off Alice, breathing heavily. "Matt!" Alice shouted before he completely blacked out.

**Consider this an early update. I probably won't be able to update tuesday.**


	18. Chapter 17

MATT:

_He was laying in a huge parking lot, surrounded by two grand buildings there were soldiers all around him, but there were two prominent people there, Alice and a man that he knew as Caine, he didn't know how he knew, but he knew._

_"You're not mutation, you're evolution!" Caine was saying in a thick German accent._

_He pushed himself into a sitting position and said, "Mutation is a part of evolution, you ignorant jackass."_

_Cain looked down at him in distaste before looking at a severely pissed off Alice. "Finish him."_

_Alice shook her head. "No."_

_"Look," Caine said, "I know he was your friend, so make it quick." He handed her a gun._

_"If you shoot him, I'll let the others leave with you."_

_Just then six other people came into view, he knew their names! Jill, Carlos, LJ, Leon, Claire and Angie!_

_She looked between Caine and him, shock splayed across her features._

_"Alice," Matt said, resolve thick in his voice, "Alice shoot me."_

_She blinked at him before shaking her head. "No, I'm not shooting you."_

_"Shoot me now, kill me. Shoot me or we all die anyway." _

_"Matt!" She protested, her voice tinged with desperation, "no!"_

_He walked up to her and gently grabbed her hand, and moved it until the gun that she possessed was pointing at his temple. Then released it "Please don't die because of me."_

_Alice was still for a moment before spinning around and pointing the gun at Caine. _

When he woke up, he was sore all over, and didn't have enough strength to open his eyes. His reflexes weren't screaming at him to run, so he just laid there, trying to build up enough energy to move.

While he was just laying there, resting, he took in his surroundings, a source of heat-he imagined fire-was coming from his right by his head. His body was covered by something very soft. He had a _very_ sore spot on his stomach, making him want to groan in pain. He heard the sound of footsteps on snow, and his eyes snapped open. He tried to sit up, but pain flared in his stomach, and be groaned laying back down.

"Don't try to get up," it was Alice, she was on her knees in front of him.

"God," Matt said, "I feel like I lost a battle with one of Umbrella's firebreathing BOWs. Remember those?"

Alice nodded mutely. "You scared me for a moment," she admitted. "I didn't think you were breathing."

"Everything is kinda fuzzy," he informed her. "Can't remember too much."

"Anything specific you do remember?" Alice questioned. "Getting stabbed. _that_ hurt like a son of a bitch. Before that... Wesker was hurting you, which kinda pissed me off... he injected you-"

He cut himself off and looked at her in the dim light of the fire. Her features were sad, but a look that resembled hope was blazing in her eyes. "Alice... did he..."

Matt trailed off because Alice was already nodding. Matt felt a smile coming to his face. "That's great news!"

He winced slightly, the knife wound was killing him still, it was itching and burning, which meant that it was healing. "How long was I out?"

Alice was silent for a moment, possibly counting the hours. "Six hours, seven at the most."

That was when the dream came back to him. "Caine," he breathed.

He saw Alice frown, "Where-"

"Dream," Matt confided. "We were in a parking lot surround by two huge buildings, and Caine ordered you to shoot me. Also, I remember Angie, Claire, Leon, LJ, Carlos, and Jill. Alice that was one hell of a dangerous move you pulled."

"That was five years ago," Alice sighed. "I don't regret it. What would you have done if the position had been reversed?"

Matt opened his mouth to tell her that he would have done what was necessary for the majority to survive, that sacrificing one to save the majority was the thing to do. But they both knew it was a lie so he didn't waste his breath. He looked at her for a moment, realizing that doubt was deep in her eyes. "Alice," he said softly, "what's wrong?"

"I..." she sighed, settling down beside his head. "I'm worried."

Matt frowned. "Why? If I were you, I'd be jumping for joy. Wesker's bound to be dead, you're normal again. We can head to Arcadia! Everything's going great."

"This is going to sound kinda stupid," she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Matt rolled his eyes, he doubted anything Alice said was ever stupid.

"Without my powers, I feel vulnerable. I-I'm worried that... you know what, just never mind, you don't need to hear this."

"Alice," Matt said, reaching over and grabbing her hand. "We can't be strong all the time." He snorted, "I'm a living example of that fact at the moment."

It was silent for a moment. "What if I'm not strong enough anymore?" The steel was gone from her voice, she sounded lost, and it greatly disturbed Matt to hear her sound so scared.

Ignoring the pain, in his stomach, he pushed himself up in a sitting position and places a comforting arm around her shoulders. "You're strong, Alice, stronger than anyone I've ever met. Look at what you've accomplished! And as for no powers, you had no powers when we were in the Hive."

Alice nodded. "I know, but-"

"Don't forget, you still have me too," Matt informed her, squeezing her tighter.

"I don't want that," Alice muttered.

Matt blinked, "What do you mean?"

"I don't want you to do that!" Alice snapped, moving out of his embrace, leaving him considerably cooler.

"To do what?" he asked incredulously.

"To take care of me!" she clarified. "I don't want to be a burden. I don't want to slow you down, to be your needy responsibility."

Matt got to his feet, and limped to where she was standing, ignoring his body's protest from the cold and from his injuries. He looked at her and saw that she was unable to meet his eyes. "Hey," Matt said softly. "If you haven't noticed I don't complain when you're around. Being with you is one hell of a lot better than being alone! And lets face it, if you weren't here, Matt looked down at where his healing ribs and stab wound was, I might not be."

"You got those because you were protecting me." She finally looked up at him, "Matt I know how you are, even if you can't remember."

Matt frowned, feeling slightly confused. "What do you mean?"

"You're a wonderful person," he felt his face flush slightly at her compliment, "and you would do _anything_ for the people you care about. The proof is in the dream you had last night. I don't want you to die protecting me."

Matt nodded his understanding but remained silent, staring at the fire, looking for something to say. He may not remember much from his life before waking up in Issacs' lab, but he'd spent two years with Alice, living with her and fighting alongside her. She knew him better than he did and he was pretty sure he knew her just as well. The arguments were bad when they had them, whether it was from something that one of them did was wreckless, or because one of them got hurt and refused the other's help, it'd happened on more than one occasion, so he didn't want to get into one of those at the moment, but he _had_ to say something.

"Alice," Matt said quietly, "you're not a vegetable. You're capable of handling yourself and I'll never doubt that. Ever. That doesn't mean that I won't be by your side, helping you along the way, like a good friend."

She looked at him before rushing over and carefully pulling him into a hug, making sure that she didn't hit his ribs or his stomach. "I probably sound like an idiot," she said softly.

"No," Matt laughed. "That's a legit worry for someone that lives in a zombie infested wasteland."

~Six months Later~

ALICE:

Life was strange. It took a while for her to adjust to having no powers. Her senses were still sharp, but not as sharp as she liked, her strength had always been less than Matt's, but now he made her look like a weakling. She faced off against monsters still when they landed; hand to hand, which she had always been partial to using, became too dangerous because the zombies found her to be food. Matt, despite what he said about her being capable, had saved her many more times than she would have like to have admitted.

Slowly it became normal, however, Alice learned her limits, which were a great deal less than Matt's, sadly, but he honestly didn't seem to mind.

She was thinking over that as she drove a small plane toward their destination. Matt was in the back, asleep. Since she was the only one with piloting skills, he took the night watches, insisting that she needed to be well rested to fly all day. With a feeling of excitement and elation, she realized that they were maybe ten minutes out from Arcadia.

The plane touched down and Matt was still sound asleep. Alice smiled as she looked at him, he just seemed to expel innocence as he slept on. A bit begrudgingly, she called his name. "Matt?"

He jumped slightly, but was still asleep, making her smile again, it was almost endearing how deeply he slept, it was nice to know that he felt safe around her. She reached back and patted his leg gently. His eyes snapped open and he tensed, before looking at Alice and realizing what was going on. A wide smile reached his face and they both hopped out at the same time, eager for human contact, and safety at the moment was also agreeable.

Alice frowned as soon as her feet hit the ground: it was silent, too silent for a group of people to be stationed up there. "I'm going to take a look around," Matt said, "can you watch the plane?"

Alice looked at him, then at the plane. An older red two seater, and Alice thoroughly doubted that anything out there would steal it, and she was aware that Matt knew that too. It was his way of saying, 'Something doesn't feel right, and I don't want to put you in danger.'

Alice gave him a look that spelled out, 'Cut the bull.' He rolled his eyes, an action that he seemed very fond of doing, and sighed, flourishing his hands in a sarcastic manner, "If you insist on coming..."

Alice couldn't help but smile, he was such a pushover sometimes. She walked forward, her hand resting on her hip, where her 9mm was holstered, prepared to draw it and fire at anytime.

The sun was still high in the sky, it was three o'clock or so, on a semi cloudy day, she could see the blue sky go on and on for miles. Beautiful day, so where was everyone? It was quiet, not a soul in sight, it was supposedly an infection free zone, so where were the animals? The further she walked through the beautifully green trees, and relishing the actually green grass, the more she was certain that something was up. The wind was blowing slightly now and the only thing that she could hear was the rustling of leaves.

She tensed, she had that tingly feeling on the back of her neck that people get when someone is watching them. Spinning around, she brought her gun from it's holster and pointed it at the only object out of place. It took her a moment to take in the weary blue eyes and spiky brown hair. "Don't do that to me, Matt," she scolded, lowering her gun.

He was too distracted to even so much as grin, which was way off, he always seemed to find scaring her amusing. "Didn't find anything," he murmured.

Alice was silent, her hope was gone, and she was ready to give up. She didn't want to look weak in front of Matt, but she didn't have any drive left in her, she had been depending on Arcadia, that had been what had kept her going for the last two years, knowing, just knowing, that a life free of the hell that had dominated earth had kept her on her feet, but now she didn't have that promise.

"Come on," Matt said, walking closer to her, so that he was within reasonable talking distance. "Let's go back. We can camp here for the night, we're both exhausted."

Alice didn't argue or protest as he placed a comforting arm around her and led her back to where they'd kept the plane.

By the time they broke through the trees again, the sun was setting and Alice had managed to pull her emotions back into place before she went into a breakdown and started shouting at the top of her lungs about the unfairness of life. Not that Matt would have judged her, he seemed to have a knack for being the overly nice and caring person out of the pair. He always made Alice feel as though she needed to be gentler around him. It was also strange, because the way he acted was so contradictory to his abilities. But then again, what was _normal_ in a world like this?

~Ten Minutes Later~

MATT:

Alice was clearly depressed. The sag in her shoulders, the way she walked was a bit slower, her voice was less upbeat, and the brightness that was almost always everpresent in her eyes was gone. Matt hated it. It wasn't as if he could blame her, he was upset about it too, but he wanted to help her, to make it all better and he couldn't, which made it so much worse for him.

They sat at the shore on a piece of wood that had probably fallen from a tree a month or so back. "What if this is our punishment?" Alice suddenly asked out of the blue.

"Punishment?" Matt mused. "I don't know about that," his eyes never left the water as he spoke. "Punishment for what first off. And I could think of worse punishments than this."

"I don't know what you've done," Alice admitted, "but my punishment for not stealing the virus sooner, for not giving it to you a day before. I... I know you can't remember, but our timing was just _awful._

Matt nodded, still looking out, "It really was, wasn't it?"

"What could be worse than this?" Alice inquired, real curiosity coloring her voice.

Matt sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "We could be alone."

He meant it. Alice had saved his life numerous times, and she probably hadn't realized half of them. Just being there was enough, if she was there then he wasn't alone. He couldn't take being alone in this hell, that coupled with the virus would have either driven him insane or suicidal, he didn't know which one he would rather choose. Alice, of course, didn't know that, and he didn't want to tell her, that was one weakness that he'd keep locked up inside himself. Besides, weakness was something you had to hide if you wanted to survive.

They remained silent, locked in their own thoughts until he sensed something moving behind him and heard the crunch of feet running on cold grass. Alice must have heard it too because their heads flipped around at the the same time. Both jumped to their feet and darted forward, whatever it was, it wasn't a zombie, it moved way too fast and it would have attempted to come after Alice.

They followed the quick moving figure into a yard full of various airplanes. Apparently they weren't the only ones to fly over. Matt really didn't have any time to ponder that one fact, he was busy running.

"Hey!" Alice bellowed at the running figure in front of them. "Wait!"

It was too late, who ever it was ran behind a silver plane and disappeared. Matt and Alice slowed down and walked cautiously forward, the doors on the side of the old, small, silver plane were open, it was dark but be could tell that someone had made it their home.

Both drew their weapons, a cold eerie feeling was washing over Matt and something felt even worse than when they'd originally landed. He stepped forward, walking toward the plane, wanting to get a closer look. He'd only went two steps when he heard an insane yelling noise and the sound of someone falling to the ground. Immediately he spun around and saw that the person was on top of Alice, a knife in their hand, trying to impale her face.

He walked over, dropping the gun, and bent down, picking the person up by the arms, barely registering their struggling. She was obviously a just girl, but a dangerous one. She flailed and kicked, squirming around, trying to get out of his grasp. Alice got up from the ground wincing slightly and walked over to the girl that Matt was trying his hardest to restrain and not seriously hurt. Alice frowned, looking confused. She reached forward and grabbed something that he couldn't see. Her hand wrenched back, holding a spidery looking figure with a red back, its legs curled into it's front as if it were dead. As soon as Alice pulled her hand back, the girl went limp in his arms, she almost fell to the ground, luckily Matt caught her, turning her around in the process. He got a clear look at her face and something clicked inside of him: he knew this girl somewhere.

Alice looked at her too, and he heard her take a sharp intake of breath proving his suspicions correct. "Claire," she murmured.

"You found her in the Raccoon City police department," Alice explained as they were sitting around a small fire, they had an unconscious Claire chained up to the side of the red plane, a precaution in case she was still crazed when she woke.

"Yeah," Matt nodded, frowning slightly. "I remember her from my dream... she was cuffed and standing beside a blond cop... Leon?"

Alice smiled, "You're getting better."

He opened his mouth to respond but he was interrupted by Claire who had apparently woken and figured out that she was trapped. Alice got up, and Matt let her go alone, she, unlike him, remembered Claire, and would probably be better for the current situation than he would be.

"Hey," she said softly, "Claire." Claire showed no recognition to her own name, but she continued to relentlessly squirm, trying to get out of the cuffs.

"Yeah," Alice said, obviously noticing her distress about the restraints, "sorry about that, but I had to get this thing off of you..." Alice brought out the spidery device and said, "Who did this to you?"

Claire stopped fighting the restraints and just looked up at her, not even noticing Matt, not that he was complaining. "Do you even know who I am?" Alice questioned.

Claire just looked up at her, and Alice obviously took her silence as an answer, because Alice said, "My name is Alice Abernathy, I met you in Raccoon City, and again in the desert, you were leading a convoy with Carlos Olivera, where is he? What about Kmart and Angie?"

Claire remained silent, just looking at Alice, who sighed, apparently deducing that she was getting nowhere, either Claire didn't know, or she wasn't telling.

**I hope you enjoyed! I'm updating for a very special reason, today is my birthday and its not everyday someone turns sixteen, riiiggghhhtt? Soooooo I'm in a very good mood... can you tell me what you think of the story so far? And this may seem random, but I need a list of your top five favorite characters its not random, and I do need it.**

**If I owned resident evil, Matt would have lived to be at the White House with the rest of the team at the end of Retribution.**


	19. Chapter 18

Alice:

The next morning was slightly strange. Claire was much more responsive, she was talking, not very much but she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth and neither was Matt. They didn't trust her, but they had to get a move on and there was no way in hell they were going to leave her. So she was sitting on Matt's lap, her wrists bound by ropes. It had already been explained to her if she tried anything funny, Matt wouldn't hesitate to knock her out.

She didn't try anything stupid and everything was fine for a few hours, Matt even managed to doze off and it was just her and Claire.

"I see my newest passenger is as talkative as ever," Alice announced, hoping to gain a response, and to her surprise she managed to.

"Look," Claire said, "I'm sorry for what happened yesterday. I... I don't remember anything, I don't even remember my own name."

"Your name," Alice said, glancing back at her, "is Claire, Claire Redfield. Ring any bells?"

"No," Claire sighed, shaking her head slightly.

"You'll get used to it," Alice assured her.

Claire held up her wrists, which were still bound by rope a corner of her mouth raised in a half smile, "Can you untie me now?"

"With Matt sleeping back there? We should get to know each other a little better first."

"This is going to be purely one-sided," Claire informed her, leaning forward slightly, "I don't have anything that I can remember to tell you."

"How," Alice said, talking mainly to herself, "did I get stuck with the two amnesiacs?"

"He has amnesia?" Claire questioned.

Alice nodded, "Two years ago Dr. Isaacs, may he rot in hell, gassed him with a substance that was supposed to cause permanent memory loss, though it wasn't as permanent as we thought, it's slowly, very slowly, coming back to him. Right before as found you he'd had a dream about the night he found you and your friend, Leon, in Raccoon City."

Claire blinked, taking the information in and not questioning anything about it. They sat in silence for a moment as they neared an incoming city, the only sound in the plane was Matt's slow and heavy breathing.

The large city came up, "The city of angles," Alice murmured as it started passing below them. The city was really a sad sight. Dark, filthy, and the stench of decay was detectable from even their height in the air. Fires seemed to wreak havoc over hundreds of spots, eating away at what where once probably beautiful buildings, but now they were rusted and falling down, dying just like the world around it.

Claire inhaled sharply as they neared a rather sturdy looking building, it was shorter than the others, but was still mostly intact. That wasn't why she sounded so horrified, she sounded that way because of what was on the ground surrounding it. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of the undead surrounded it. Alice could very vividly imagine their moans of hunger. Her question was: hunger for WHAT? What was making them stand there diligently surrounding the building?

A shrill noise cut through the air, sounding like an alarm from a few war movies that she'd seen. Looking down on the top of the building, she saw that small figures were running around, one of them was probably making the noise. They were running which meant that they were alive.

"Ugh," a drowsy voice said from the back, telling her that Matt was awake. "That shit hurts!"

"What?" Alice questioned, getting closer to the building.

"The noise! What's going on?" Matt demanded.

"I think we've found survivors," Alice replied, flying over the roof, getting a closer look at the people they were alive alright. She got a bit too close and almost hit two of them.

She flew away from the building, trying to get closer to the roof before she tried anything. Turning back around she announced, "Hang on this is going to get bumpy."

"At least untie me first!" Claire protested.

Alice was silent for a moment before Matt said, "It'll be fine, I've got it."

Alice passed back a knife and said, "Just don't try anything crazy."

"Nothing crazier than what you're attempting," Claire informed her.

Alice couldn't help but smile to herself. This was insane. As they neared the roof, she saw that they'd went out of their way to clear off the roof for her to land on. As she came closer, she allowed the plane to dip down, hoping to slow it as it hit the cement. She lost sight of the roof for a moment before pulling up at the last minute, earning a lengthy list of swear words from Matt that Claire, if she had her memory, would have beaten him within an inch of his life for. As soon as her wheels hit solid ground (or roof, whatever), she hit the breaks, trying to stop the plane as it slid down the roof. It was large, but Alice had a bad feeling that it wasn't going to be large enough.

They were probably halfway across the roof, and still going too fast, when she felt a jerk in the plane. Something else was helping slow them down, she looked out her window to the side and saw that someone had definitely been using their heads, a cable cord was wrapped around the plane. She saw a man with sleek black hair pulling on one end of the cord that was wrapped and tied securely around a white metal pole sticking up from the roof. They were getting closer to the edge than she would have liked, but they seemed to be slowing down quickly enough. That was until she felt another jerk, the cable cord went slack, meaning that it one of the sides had been torn off.

They were heading uncontrollably toward the edge she saw the people behind them were running after the plane, but she was more interested in the fact that they were about to go over, Alice pulled back on the breaks with all of her might. The plane came to a stop right after the first wheel went off the side. It was too late the plane started tilling forward. Alice yelled, "NO!"

Just when she was sure that they were doomed, she saw someone jump behind her, they managed to grab the tail of the plane and he pulled it back to the ground. She closed her eyes, breathing a sigh of relief, and she heard Claire and Matt doing similar things behind her.

"Pull it back!" she heard the man who'd caught the tail of the plane yell. "Come on! Pull!" The plane started moving backward and away from the deadly ground below. She kept thanking god that she was still alive until the plane stopped it slow, bumpy movement backward.

She didn't realize how tense she was until the plane stopped, she slumped back in her seat and exhaled a sharp breath that she hadn't even realized that she had been holding.

"Alice," Matt's shaky voice came from behind her, "let's not do something that stupid again."

The only thing Alice could manage was a nod in agreement before she opened up her window and clambered out. Standing on the wing of the plane, she looked down at the people on the roof. There was the man who'd caught them before they went over, he looked pretty young, late twenties at the most, light brown skin and no hair on the top of his head, but a trimmed beard on his chin. There was a shorter timid looking Asian man with black hair, a man with longer curly black hair, mixed in with just a few grey strands, along with a beard and a thin mustache. A man in what looked to be average mechanic clothing, his black hair was sleeked back, and he wore a gold chain around his neck. Lastly there was a woman, she was pretty with black hair that reached probably mid back.

The man who caught the plane spoke up first, "Nice landing."

Alice grinned at him and said, "Technically its called crashing."

He held out his hand, which Alice took and jumped down with. "Luther West," he said, shaking it. He

"Alice," she introduced herself, turning around, she saw that Matt and Claire were standing on the wing as well. "This is Claire and Matt."

Luther smiled and held his hand out to Claire, "Luther West."

Claire ignored the hand and jumped down. Matt followed suit, but he didn't look hostile like Claire, he shook Luther's hand and followed behind Claire to stand beside Alice. They stood in silence for a moment before the girl, Crystal said, "You're from Arcadia aren't you?"

"What do you know about Arcadia?" Matt asked sharply.

Some of the hope that'd shown in Crystal's eyes faded and Luther answered, "Just what they've been broadcasting. Safehaven away from infection. Why?"

"I've been to Alaska," Alice said. "I'm sorry, but there's nothing there."

"Alaska?" Angle asked.

"Yeah," Alice replied, "Arcadia is a small town in Alaska."

"No," Luther said shaking his head. "Its not."

Alice opened her mouth to protest when Angel walked over to her with a pair of binoculars, "Here, see for yourself."

Alice grabbed them from his hands and placed them over her eyes, staring in the direction that he was pointing in. Through the smoke and the fog of the now dismal city she saw a large ship sitting on the coast. She saw that something was written on the side, as soon as she read it, hope surged though her entire being yet again. ARCADIA was written in bold capitol letters.

"Its a ship," she breathed, taking it away from her face and handing it to Matt.

He was silent for a moment, she saw his chest puff out as he inhaled deeply. "I'll be damned." He removed them and handed them to Claire.

Alice couldn't resist, she leaned over and rested her head on Matt's shoulder, a rare display of affection, she couldn't help it though, she was elated. "There's still hope," she said in a barely audible whisper.

Claire inhaled sharply. Alice lifted her head up and looked at Claire inquisitively. "That's right," she muttered.

"You remember?" Alice asked.

"I remember the beach," she said, a frown on her face as she thought. "There were boats... people coming to help us."

"Why," Matt inquired softly, "why didn't you go with them."

Claire looked over at the two of them, confusion in her gaze. "I don't know."

"Come on," Luther said to them quietly, "I'll give you the grand tour."

~Later that Night~

It had taken two hours or so for them to look around what had previously been the prison. From maximum security cells to solitary confinement to the prison yard on the bottom floor. Everything was dingy, dirty, and damp. That didn't matter to Alice, though, it was heaven: it didn't smell of decay, nothing was trying to kill her, and she would rest easier knowing that the people she cared about, being Matt and Claire, were safe.

They entered a large room with round tables spread out over the room, if Alice had to take a guess that it had been the cafeteria for the prisoners. "I hope you enjoy your new home," Luther said to the three of him, a smile on his face as if he was trying to pretend that he wasn't calling a prison his home.

"Crystal is the chef here," Luther said, "the food is shitty and tasteless, but she's a master at what she does."

Alice smiled encouragingly at the girl and said, "I'm sorry that we weren't what you expected."

She smiled and shook her head. And in her strange accent, said, "Get used to disappointment, that's what my manager always said."

"You were an actress?" Alice inquired.

"Came here to live the dream, but got stuck waiting tables."

Alice saw Matt open his mouth, most likely to make an optimistic comment, when Bennett shoved past him. "What are you all waiting for, some of us are hungry, you know!"

Alice blinked, as he shoved past her and stood in front of Crystal, who dolloped food onto his and Kim Young's plate, she looked as though she'd rather be serving them poison. Everything went silent and Alice looked over at Matt, he was watching Bennett sit down, his eyes flashed dangerously, and Alice knew what a possibly outcome to his anger would be. Subtly, she shook her head, letting him know he wasn't worth the trouble. Matt nodded, exhaling sharply.

Crystal looked at their exchange with understanding in her eyes, "I've met plenty of creeps like him in my time."

"What's his story?" Matt asked, his tone dark.

"He was some big time movie producer back in the land of the living," Luther said quietly. "He doesn't deem to understand that the world has changed." Louder so everyone could hear, he said, "That's why he always acts like there's a stick up his ass!"

Bennett and Kim Young both looked at him, but Bennett seemed to silently snort at his words. Alice figured that they must have been pretty used to each other, otherwise a fight would have immediately broke out, and she would have bet her money on Luther.

The five of them sat down at a separate table, but Claire didn't have anything. "Um," she sighed, "I'm not hungry, I'ma go up to the roof."

No one said anything to stop her as she walked out of the room.

"How long have you been stuck here?" Matt asked after a few seconds of silence.

"Feels like forEVER," Crystal sighed.

"Haven't you tried to get out?" Alice questioned.

"Yeah," Luther sighed, "but we're trapped here, there's no way out-"

"Except-" Crystal cut Luther off and was silenced by him moments later.

"Except what?" Alice pressed.

"Nothing," Luther sighed. "It'd just be a waste of your time."

Alice made a point of looking around at the walls of the prison before saying, "We've got time to waste."

Luther sighed, setting his fork on his plate, his food barely touched. "Alright. You guys ready?"

Matt stood up and sighed, "You wanna go what this other option is? Someone needs to go and see Claire."

Alice nodded mutely and Matt left the room. "After you," Luther said gesturing to one room she'd never been in.

"So what's this other option?" Alice inquired as they walked down a flight of cement stairs into a dark room lit up by only a few torches.

"When shit hit the fan we took refuge in the prison," Luther said, "it seemed to have the thickest walls and the sturdiest structure. It'd been abandoned a ago, I guess when people started eating one another, there's not much sense in keeping up."

They walked into what was probably the basement. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw a man sitting down, reading a perverted magazine, and a large cage in the middle of the room. "Anyways," Luther continued, "while we were exploring, we came across him. The guards hadn't let him out. He tells us that he knows a way out of this hellhole."

"Wendell," Luther said, causing the older man to look up. "This is our new guest, Alice. Alice, this is Wendell." Wendell looked Alice over, his eyes roaming over her form, making her feel the urge to slap him. It was as if he was mentally undressing her.

"Its time for your break," Luther informed him.

"About time!" Wendell snapped. "Its spooky down here, I swear I can hear something moving in the walls."

Luther frowned, perplexed. "Let's go and check it out, then."

Wendell looked up at Luther, confused, fear deep in his eyes. Silence enveloped the group for a moment before Luther spoke again, his voice more demanding. "Come on!"

Wendell reluctantly got up and followed Luther away from the cage, around a corner and out of sight.

Alice looked into the mesh cage and saw a man sitting on the bed, looking over at her. He got up and walked over to the door. When the light hit him, she got her first good look, he had dark green eyes, tanned skin, and handsome facial features, sporting a buzz cut and what looked to be a jumpsuit, probably from the prison.

He pointed toward Alice, a hint of a smile on his lips. "You're the one who flew the plane here earlier," his deep voice carried across the large quiet room.

Alice nodded. He put his hand through a whole in the door, obviously for her to shake, but she couldn't bring herself to reach out and take it. "My name's Chris."

**I own nothing, as you know. Also, fair warning, chapters are starting to become slower for me to write. I will TRY to post every Tuesday. **


	20. Chapter 19

MATT:

He hated stairs, and there were plenty of them to take before he got to the roof. Even with his super human abilities and stamina he managed to break a sweat before he opened the door and felt the wonderfully cool wind rush past his skin, cooling him off. Claire and Angel were outside, she had the binoculars in hand and was peering across the city, probably soaking in the sight of the ship, their salvation was so close, making it impossible not to be excited.

"Your memory?" Angel inquired as Matt walked over to the pair. "How is it?"

Claire stopped gazing through the binoculars and looked at Angel, her eyes drifting to Matt as he walked up. "It coming back," she said, thoughtfulness tinging her voice.

"I know how you feel," Matt said, leaning against a metal bar.

Claire nodded mutely, her memory loss had made her a quiet woman. The vague memories that he'd manage to recall over the years about her had never led him to that assumption.

"It'll come," Matt said in what was hopefully an assuring voice. "I know it will. I was hit with permanent memory gas, and mine is coming back. I dream memories almost every night now."

Claire managed a small smile and nodded.

Matt rubbed his face trying to make himself more alert, desperately trying to think straight. Looking over the large city made him feel almost normal, aside from the fires and walking dead, he was sure that the view wasn't all that strange to him. He was sure that he was from a huge city, the only thing he was certain of was that it wasn't this one.

ALICE:

"Alice," she answered Chris back, introducing herself in turn.

Seeing that she wasn't about to shake his hand, he withdrew the offer and crouched down so they were on eye level. There was something oddly familiar about him, the way he acted, the confident air about him, the obvious intelligence in his eyes, and the sense that he could kick just about anyone's ass without even so much as breaking a sweat.

"You need to talk some sense into them," he said quietly.

Alice felt a challenging smile tug at her lips, "I need to do what?"

"I don't belong in here," he whispered earnestly. "I was in LA for a month about three and a half years back with two friends, we left a group if maybe sixty survivors to help. I was ordered to come and release the prisoners because we needed more people on the streets to fight those things. We were all pulling out to help when a gang of prisoners jumped me. They left me here all alone, their idea of a joke."

"Really?" Alice inquired, distrust coloring her voice.

"Really," Chris replied, gripping the wires of metals, and bracing his weight against it. "I can get you out of here! All you have to do is let me out of here."

Alice had no idea how to respond. She had issues on going on leaps of faith, and she wasn't about to do that until she was sure she was desperate. The silence was thick for maybe half a minute before she heard footsteps. Luther and Wendell came walking up, their faces impassive. She hoped nothing was wrong, that was the last thing she needed.

"You ready to go?" Luther inquired.

"Yeah," Alice nodded, Wendell took his normal seat by the cage, pulling his magazine out and started reading again.

Chris banged on the cage walls and shouted, "You need me! You need to get out of here! I know a way you're gonna need me! You're gonna need me to get out!"

Alice walked forward, trying to fend off the feeling that he was right. She heard the sound if a flare gun firing, which meant that they were still trying to get the boat's attention.

"Have you checked out what he was talking about?" Alice inquired.

"No," Luther shrugged, "he won't tell us shit until we let him out, and I'm not letting him out."

Alice was quiet. And Luther continued. "The man's a killer, I see it in his eyes."

"How do you know?" She asked.

"I know people," Luther replied simply.

"Really?" Alice inquired. "What do you see when you look into my eyes."

Luther looked closely at her for a moment before saying, "I don't really know."

MATT:

After he watched Angel fire the flare, he decided to go back down. Claire seemed content with just looking at Arcadia, and Angel seemed like a nice enough guy, but Matt wasn't in the mood for awkward conversations and strained silences.

As he walked down the long stairwell he thought of the large city. He wondered where he was originally from. Alice had never told him, he might not have ever told her.

Suddenly his head started throbbing painfully and he swore violently under his breath as his knees started feeling weak. He sat on the stairs, and leaned against the railing, clutching it tightly, he didn't know if he was truly indestructible, but he did know that he didn't want test it out on so many floors worth of stairs.

He kept shaking his head,his breathing coming out in ragged gasps as his alertness started going downhill and blackness threatened to envelope him. He managed to secure himself on the stair that he was sitting on before he finally succumbed to the overbearing weight of the darkness.

'He was young, maybe five, running around someplace green, a park? He was chasing after someone with long light brown hair, she was three , they were both laughing and screaming in glee.

The scene flashed forward a few years and Matt was maybe eight and he was yelling and screaming at the same girl. "Lisa! I can't believe you!" She was staring at him wide eyed with a page of his beloved comic books in her hand, one end jagged from where she'd torn it out.

Flash forward another few years, Matt was maybe seventeen. He was rolling on the ground with another guy, his fist was flying forward, hitting his opponent's nose and causing a crunching noise. Lisa was behind him, along with another girl, both were frantically trying to get him off. With the man hunched over clutching his face, he allowed them to pull him back.

"What was that for, Matt?" Lisa asked, tears coming out of her eyes slowly.

"The bastard was cheating on you," Matt said, pulling her in for a hug as she started crying harder. He stroked her head again and said quietly, "Nothing's gonna hurt you again, I promise."'

Matt came to a moment later, his breathing still coming out in ragged gasps. He thought about the memories that just came back. He grew up in a big city, that was for sure, throughout each of his flashbacks, he'd been surrounded by tall skyscrapers. 'New York!' He thought suddenly. He'd grown up in New York.

He stored his precious memories and got to his feet, not wanting anyone to come across him, they'd probably start worrying and he didn't need that. He got to his feet easily, as if he hadn't been out cold moments before. He descended the stairs thoughtfully, enjoying the feeling of being able to revisit the memories of his childhood. He knew where he came from, that had to count for something.

He made it to the bottom floor a short time after. He was just outside of the cafeteria when he heard Luther's laughing voice. "Damn! I wasn't expecting that when I looked into your eyes."

Matt walked in curious and saw that Alice was showing Luther her expansive collection of weapons. "Girls gotta be prepared," Alice informed him as she emptied out her cloth pouch full of quarters.

"Why," Luther said as Matt reached them, "would you possibly want those?"

Alice looked over at Matt and smiled slightly, he knew the reason. "Its a hobby," she finally said.

"A hobby," Luther repeated. "Alright then," his tone made it clear that he thought she was strange. He looked over at Matt with a slight questioning gaze and Matt just shrugged. "I've gotta go, see you guys in the morning," he gestured to the many floors above him, "pick a cell... any cell."

Luther walked out of the room, leaving the two of them alone. Matt sat down across from Alice, watching as she took the quarters and put them into small stacks, counting out how many she had.

"New York," he said suddenly, remembering his flashback.

"What?" she said absently, still stacking them.

"New York," he repeated. "I'm from New York."

She paused, her hand over a new stack of coins, and looked up at him. "Memory?"

Matt nodded, a ghost of a smile on his face. "Speaking of memory," Matt said quietly, leaning slightly closer to her, "Are you ever going to tell me what happened in Detroit?"

Alice was silent for a moment, a pained look crossed her features, the same look that she always had when he brought up the subject. "Matt," Alice sighed. "I don't know if I can. You wouldn't look at me in the same way ever, I did something I'll never be able to live down. You saved me and Angie."

Silence enveloped the room. "You know I couldn't do that." Matt said, "did I look at you differently before I lost my memory?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I wouldn't blame you if you did. I left right after what happened."

"Really?" Matt said, "why don't you tell me," he urged. "You told me about Raccoon, about us finding you after the crash, and about all of the others. Those two weeks before you left, along with the three years in the convoy, I know nothing about."

Alice remained silent, letting Matt know that she was standing by her decision. They both knew that he could sway her to tell him, but he knew that she knew that he wouldn't.

For some reason that made him aggravated, he swallowed the emotion and lifted one corner of his mouth in a half smile. "I think I'ma turn in," he could hear the slight sharpness in his voice, and desperately wished that he could hide it. "Night."

"Goodnight, Matt." She responded quietly as he walked away.

He walked up the stairs and took in the rooms in front of him. The used ones were obvious. He walked three of four cells away from the nearest occupied cell and walked inside. He sat down in the bed and laid back, sighing. He needed the sleep desperately.

More sleep meant more memories.

'He was at a park with a group of people, he immediately recognized Alice amongst them along with Claire. Slowly he started recognizing them. Leon, Jill, Carlos, LJ, and Angie.

He was carrying Angie on his shoulders, walking toward a pair of vehicles. Everyone was talking animatedly and laughing.

When he got to the van, he set Angie in and buckled her up before shutting the door. He was about to start moving toward the driver's seat when Alice walked up to him. He started feeling nervous at her close proximity along with her blank facial expression. He asked her if something was wrong and LJ commented that she might want to kiss her husband.

Even unconscious, Matt was confused. Seconds later, he saw the Umbrella logo flash in her eyes right before he felt incredible pain as she drove her fist into his lower ribcage, sending him flying backward into a tree.'

His eyes snapped open as he thought the most depressing question: was that Detroit?

The prison was silent other than the sounds of slow breathing. He also heard the padding of soft footsteps coming closer to him. He got out of his bed and walked to the door, poking his head out, he saw Alice walking toward him, probably looking for a bed.

He needed to talk to her. He was about to call her name, but she was already looking at him, and walking toward him. She stepped into his cell and he sat down on his bed.

"I had a rather vivid and painful dream," Matt informed her.

Alice looked down at him, her eyebrows raised inquiringly.

He smiled and said, "First off, I never knew we were married."

Alice looked at him, a slight blush crept onto her face. She seemed to think for a moment and the redness along with most of her other color seemed to vanish.

"I do know that I don't want to be on the receiving end of one of your punches again," he added, his tone light.

She hung her head in shame. "Matt... I-"

He stood up and walked over, grabbing her small hand in his larger one. "You what?" he cut her off softly. "You're telling me that you getting controlled by Umbrella is your fault."

"I should have been able to stop it," she insisted quietly, aware that there were others around them.

"Alice-" It was his turn to get cut off.

"I almost killed her," she spoke, her tone full of self-loathing. "I almost killed her and I shot you. And I threw you into a wall, hurting your already broken ribs like a madman. I was out of control, I was dangerous." She shook her head and in an even softer tone she said, "Even then you wanted me to stay."

"Of course I did," Matt said, squeezing her hand lightly, a comforting gesture. "You didn't do anything wrong, the bastards that took you free will away did."

"You know," Alice mused, "you haven't changed one bit."

"Really?" Matt asked, leading her over to sit on the bed. "How did you come to that conclusion?"

"The moment I met you," Alice said, "you pulled me inside the Raccoon City mansion, away from the people coming in by helicopters, led me down a hallway away from them, they broken the glass sending in smoke grenades, and you shielded my body with your own."

"I don't see the connection," Matt smiled apologetically.

"Don't you see?" Alice said. "Your still so nice, loving, brave. You'd do anything for anyone. I don't know if I could be like that."

"You're like that, Alice," Matt assured her confidently.

The next morning, Matt woke up feeling refreshed. As strange as it sounded, he hadn't slept in a bed longer than his memory would allow him to remember. Though he imagined that the jail beds weren't as comfortable as some, it was still like he was on a cloud.

He remembered during his tour that Luther mentioned something about running water. He walked down the stairs to the bottom floor and saw that Crystal was lounging around, a book in hand.

"Excuse me," he said quietly, figuring that they were the first ones up. Crystal looked away from her book and smiled at him questioningly. "Luther said something about running water."

Crystal nodded in understanding. "I don't blame you," she said getting to her feet, "I'll show you where it is."

ALICE:

She woke up cherishing the feeling of an actual bed beneath her. It had been so long since she'd had one. She was surprised on how much she truly missed it. She'd slept soundly, something that she hadn't managed to do since she'd lost her abilities. It was kind of hard to lay your head down when you know that you're considered fresh meat again. Even with Matt watching over her she found it difficult.

She placed her feet on the cool ground, getting up she stretched her muscles, getting ready for whatever the day ahead had in store for her. She walked out of her cell, her boots making a soft padding noise against the cement floor. She looked down at the cafeteria as she descended the steps. Matt, Claire, Crystal, Angel, and Luther were all sitting around a table, talking quietly.

They all looked up at her as she came down the stairs. She saw with a twinge of amusement that Matt's hair was wet, and he was smiling, shaking his hair at Claire, who in turn slapped him on the arm. She saw that Claire was smiling, something that she hadn't seen the younger woman do since she left from Detroit.

She sat at a bench across from from the occupied table. "Alice," Matt sighed, sounding as though he was in a trance. "Running water... god it's amazing!"

Alice looked at him long and hard, trying to come up with an appropriate response. For once, though, words seemed to fail her.

Laughing, Luther stood up. "Why don't you find out for yourself?"

He got up and motioned for her to follow him.

"You won't regret it!" Matt called out to her laughingly.

Alice followed Luther out of the room and down a hallway, thinking about just how well Matt was acting, it was as though they'd never had that awful conversation the night before. For the first time since before the Hive she felt normal, human, innocent. The world went to Hell years ago, and she was beginning to accept the fact that it wasn't all her fault, she was alive,which made it her responsibility to help set things right, but she would have help along the way, maybe she didn't have to do this alone.

She was going to have to find a way to thank Matt, she just didn't know how yet.

**Sorry for the long wait. I'm not going to lie I was suffering from laziness. I was too lazy to watch the fourth movie. Just too lazy. Also to the reviewer that asked about Crystal: I'm sorry but I'd already written the part before you reviewed. Its completely cannon. If you want a life to be spared tell me NOW so I don't make another mistake.**

**I've put this in my stories so I figured I'd put it on this one too. I write based on review numbers (popularity) that way I know I'm updating the stories that my readers want to read. So you might wanna leave a review because I have like three other active stories.**


	21. Chapter 20

**ALICE:**

"Yes," Luther said as he turned the knob to get the water going. "We have running water!"

"Very civilized," Alice commented jokingly.

"We do our best," he said to her sincerely.

She ran her hand under the running stream. Icy water hit her fingers. "Its cold," she informed him.

"Our best only gets us so far," he admitted. They stood in an awkward silence for a moment before Luther started backing away. "Guess I should leave you to it."

"I guess you should," Alice said softly.

Giving her one last smile he walked out. She took her weapons out of their holsters, anticipating the feeling of a real shower, when she paused for a moment, something didn't feel quite right. Shrugging, she removed her holsters, so that she was just in her black shirt and cargo pants. She felt so exposed, and she still had that bad feeling.

Deciding that she'd much rather be safe than sorry, she picked up one of her handguns and walked forward. She made it to the towel rack, and slid the towel hanging from the top over. Wendell was crouched there. Feeling a surge of anger and annoyance, she reached around and grabbed a fistfull of his shirt, pulling him close and pointing her weapon at his chin, glaring at him.

He put his hands up and said, "Hey now! Take it easy, take it easy!"

This asshole was spying on her taking a shower and he was telling her to take it easy! Oh hell no!

"Get out of my sight!" she snarled shoving him back five or six feet so she wouldn't be tempted reach to break his neck. He turned around to go and screamed. Alice looked over and saw a zombie grab him with its mutated mouth and latched it on to his face. She heard footsteps and turned around. A zombie with the same mutated mouth was coming at her. Immediately she blew its brains out, she turned around to shoot the monster that had Wendell but it was too late, she only saw his feet being dragged down a hole that hadn't been there when she'd walked in.

Moments later she heard the sound of rushed footsteps. Matt tore through the doorway, only to stop a few feet in front of her, looking between her, the dead body, and the large hole in the ground.

"Are you hurt?" he demanded a second later as the others ran in.

"I'm fine," Alice assured him.

"What happened?" Luther asked.

"I was about to take a shower when I got a bad vibe," Alice said, "I looked around and found that Wendell guy hiding behind the clothing rack-"

"He was doing _what_?" Matt demanded. "Where is he? I'ma kill him!"

"You won't have the chance to," Alice said grimly, "while I was busy killing this thing," Alice gestured to the dead zombie, "another one grabbed him and dragged him down. They're digging tunnels now."

"Wait," Bennett said, "so these things can just come up anywhere now?"

"We have to get out of here!" Kim Young said frantically. "Your plane-"

"Only seats two," Matt cut him off.

"We could draw straws!" Kim Young suggested.

"No," Alice said firmly, "we all get out of here or not at all."

"How?" Bennett demanded, "There is no way out! Were trapped! What are we going to do? Walk out of the front door, single file?"

Alice decided she was desperate enough now. "Maybe not," she said.

She took off, knowing that they would follow. She heard their questioning murmurs and footsteps as she kept walking. She walked down the familiar flight of dark concrete stairs and over to the familiar metal cage.

"Wait," Bennett sounded close to hysteria. "You're crazy, you can't honestly be thinking about letting him out!"

Letting Chris out was the only way Alice saw leaving, and she wanted to leave. "He says he knows a way," Alice informed him.

"He's still locked up!" Bennett snapped, "they let everyone else out but him, what does that tell you, huh?"

"It tells me that he knows a way out and ain't telling us shit til we let him out," Luther snapped right back in his face.

"Angel," Bennett said, barely phased, "what do you think?"

"I think," Angel sighed, "that we don't have much of a choice, I don't like it but he thinks he knows a way out."

Bennett paled, Alice saw that he was getting terrified, as if the prospect of getting gunned down by Chris was worse than getting attacked by hordes of zombies. "Crystal," Bennett said, looking desperately at the younger woman, "what about you? Even you're not that stupid!"

Alice thought Crystal was going to walk over and slap the teeth out of his mouth, an action she would have loved to have seen, but she didn't, she just gave him a cold 'go-straight-to-hell' look and said, "I guess I am. I agree with Angel. If this guy says he knows a way out, then I wanna hear it."

Alice looked over at Matt who was leaning against a wall quietly in the shadows, Claire at his side. "I trust you, Alice," Matt said, answering her unspoken question.

"We didn't ask what lover boy thought of you!" Bennett snapped, "this is my life we're talking about here!"

She saw Matt go slightly pink, whether from embarrassment or from anger she didn't know, all she knew was that she was feeling aggravation toward Bennett, the ex-producer was starting to eat away at her very last nerve.

"Let's get one thing straight," Matt growled, startling Alice as he stepped away from where he was leaning. "I trust Alice because she's kept me from dying over the past two and half years. And one more out of place remark like that and I don't think I need my extra strength to kick your snobbish, stuck up ass."

Bennett visibly paled and Alice looked over at Matt worriedly, she remembered what happened when Matt lost his temper, even if Matt, himself, didn't.

"Alright," Luther said loudly, obviously sensing trouble. "Let's get this over with!"

Matt snapped out of his glare and looked over at Alice nodding. She took that as initiative to walk over and set the key inside the lock. After a moment of hesitation, and making sure this was her last resort, she twisted the key, unlocking it, and pulling it open.

Chris was standing at the doorway, a half-smirk on his face. "I knew you'd come to your senses soon enough."

Alice stepped back and allowed Chris to walk out. He managed to keep the smirk on his face but she saw the undisguised relief in his eyes.

Chris looked around the room taking in everybody. His eyes lingered on Bennett, malice in his features. They stared at each other for a few seconds before Chris said, "Boo."

Bennett jumped back, obviously terrified.

"First thing's first," Chris said, "where's the man who put this asshole in his place?"

Matt stepped from where he was in the shadows. As soon as Chris saw him, he froze. Matt mirrored his actions, a look of confusion on his face.

"I know you..." Matt said. His expression went from that of a seriously thinking one, to a slack expression. He was still for about five seconds.

"Matt?" Alice asked, confusion in her voice.

At the sound of her voice, his hand twitched, and he stiffened up. "Chris," he said finally, "Chris Redfield."

Chris's surprised expression changed to a grin. "Its good to see you too, Addison..." then his expression turned panicky. "If you're here then where's the convoy? What about-"

"Arcadia," Matt answered, "but your sister isn't."

"What, don't tell me she-" He cut himself off as Matt moved out of the way. "Claire?" He said, disbelief and happiness in his voice.

Alice was lost until she remembered Claire telling her, something about a Chris being with the convoy and leaving with Jill and Leon.

Claire looked at him with a raised eyebrow, "Yeah?"

"Its really you?" he questioned, stepping closer. He walked up to her and reached out. His fingers barely grazed her cheek when she grabbed him by the wrist and twisted his arm behind his back.

"Listen, buddy," she snarled, "I don't know who you are-"

"Its me, Chris," he said, confusion thick in his voice. "Your brother."

Claire blinked but she didn't seem to be ready to let him go. "Claire," Alice said, walking over to her, "come one, let him go." She pushed Chris away from her and backed up slightly.

Chris had a wounded look in his eyes and Alice quickly explained, scarcely imagining how bad he must have felt. "She's had a bit of memory loss, if you're really her brother, she'll remember you soon enough."

That was when Bennett got his nerve back. "This is a really touching reunion, now can we please get out of here before we all get eaten the fuck alive!"

**MATT:**

They walked to the front yard of the prison, Chris leading the way. The fence was keeping hordes of undead at bay, their arms reaching in as if they were going to be able to grab them and pull the survivors through the small holes.

While Chris was explaining certain things about their way out, Matt pulled Alice to the back of the group. She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, and he immediately began to explain in hushed tones, his eyes bright in excitement. "I'm starting to remember. I remember finding Kmart, Chris saved Leon's life. I remember finding Claire and Leon in the police station. I remember everything about the day you left. Even the hive is starting to come back in bits and pieces. I remember what everyone looked like, getting elbowed in the head by Spence, having to shoot Rain."

Alice nodded, and despite the gravity of the situation, she was smiling. "I'm glad you remember. Hopefully you'll be back to normal soon. I know we've both been waiting so long."

He tuned back into what Chris was saying. "Armor is an inch thick, eighteen wheels, seats twenty people. We'll be going out of here in style."

Angle was walking toward a thick garage door. He inspected it for a few seconds before standing back up. "The wires for the lock are fried. I can get through it though."

"Alright," Alice said, "but as safe as we will be with the vehicle, we're still going to have to get out of it to get into a boat."

"We need more firepower," Matt summed up.

"I've got that taken care of," Chris said. "The guards had an armory. Beautiful, it was filled with every weapon imaginable and it would be more than enough to get us out." He turned and looked at Bennett with distaste yet again. "That is if everyone is capable enough not to kill the living."

Bennett took a step back and shrugged.

"Alright," Claire said bracingly, stepping up and started giving orders. The surprised look on Chris's face was priceless. "Alice, you go with Chris to grab the weapons. Angel, you, Bennett, and Kim Young go and work on the lock."

CRASH!

Matt blinked slowly before turning to the gates of the fence where the offending noise had originated. He felt his jaw slacken. This was one huge creature. At least eight feet tall, completely covered in cloth and had nails running through its body. That wasn't the worst part. It wielded a ten foot long ax with a blade that was a little more than half the length of Matt's own body. The blade looked wickedly sharp with blood already dripping off it. Matt didn't want to know from who. Opposite to the blade was a blunt end with spikes coming out of it.

"What," Alice said.

"The fuck," Matt came after.

"Is that?" Claire completed.

"I don't know," Chris said, "but I doubt he's friendly. We need to go. Now!"

Without another word Alice and Chris left. Crystal walked over to where Claire, Matt, and Luther were standing. "I'm gonna help them."

"Hey," Matt said softly to her, "that's dangerous."

She smiled at him. "I know, but the more people we have to carry weapons, the better."

CRASH!

Matt winced at the noise and said, "Alright, go!"

"We need to secure the gate," Claire shouted over the noise of the undead.

"Agreed!" Luther said, as they started running toward it.

As they neared, the smell of decay got impossibly worse, making Matt want to throw up his breakfast. The zombies started waving their hands more frantically toward them, as if beckoning them over. Matt saw a long shiny black crowbar in Luther's hands. When he got close enough, he started swinging it at the undead's out stretched arm, knocking them away from him.

CRASH!

The ax man swung the spiked portion of his deadly weapon toward the fence, causing the rusted metal to shudder violently. It didn't take a genius to know that the fence wasn't going to last much longer if the ax man continued its powerful blows.

Luther slid the crowbar into the handles of gate and they all backed up as the creature hit the fence again, sending yet another violent tremor through the metal and shaking the ground under Matt's feet.

"Just shoot the motherfucker!" Claire shouted to no one in particular.

Luther obliged, pulling out his weapon, he managed a headshot. Matt expected it to just fall down and lay there. That didn't happen, of course. It continued to swing it's ax and hit the gate like there wasn't a bullet in the area where his face was supposed to be.

The three of them stood still in silent shock as it brought its ax forward yet again.

CRASH!

The noise seemed to snap the three of them out of their shock. "The car!" Matt shouted, pointing toward the police care that was shoved over to the side of the of the yard by the building.

The three of them ran over to it, Claire pulled the door open and started steering as Matt and Luther went to to the back and started pushing. In a matter of seconds, they were at the gate, the car pressed against the opening.

CRASH!

Matt said what was probably on everybody else's mind. "Its not going to hold!"

CRASH!

The doors were starting to lean over, a couple more swings and it would be down.

CRASH!

"Come on!" Claire said, "We need to get the hell out of here!"

CRASH!

The final blow from the fence caused it to fall backward. Matt felt a weird sense of déjà vu. As the force of the blow propelled the doors backward and toward him and the others. At once the three of them darted back inside.

**ALICE:**

She dashed down the hallway, following Chris effortlessly. They made it to an elevator door and he stopped. "I hope you're strong," he commented.

"I haven't survived this long on my good looks," she informed him before getting on one side of the door while he got on the other. Immediately they started pulling. Inch by inch the door started to give away.

Five minutes of strenuous labor later, the inside was accessible. Alice looked down and then back up at Chris with raised eyebrows.

"The jail was using electricity to keep the water out. When the power quit, some of the lower levels flooded."

Alice nodded in understanding and pulled a gun out of her holster and held it out to him. He looked down at it and then up at her, skepticism and disbelief played out in his eyes. "You're going to trust me with a gun now?"

Alice shrugged, "Why not?"

Chris didn't seem to have any protests about it. He grabbed the weapon appreciatively and stuck it in the waistband of his pants.

"How far down is it?" Alice questioned, stepping toward the gushing water in the elevator shaft.

Chris smiled grimly at her before saying, "All the way."

Alice nodded, not feeling the least bit surprised. That was completely logical to her luck. "Okay," she said bracingly, "let's get this over with."

She was about to jump when she heard footsteps echoing down the dimly lit hall. Turning around she saw Crystal walking toward them. "Where do you think you're going?" Chris asked her as he watched her walk up.

"With you," she answered simply.

"Look," Chris said, "this isn't a game, its dangerous."

"You don't think I know that?" Crystal demanded. "I know we need weapons. I know that the more people to carry the weapons, the better."

Chris looked at her, admiration in his eyes. "Alright. Its a long swim."

"I was a champ in high-school," Crystal said calmly.

Chris nodded in understanding before walking over to the edge of the shaft and jumped in stiffly. Alice gave one last glance to Crystal before following his example.

The water was icy cold and her body protested violently as she swam forward. After what felt like forever, she finally saw the end of the swim, where Chris was starting to rise. Eagerly, she swam faster, as her head broke the surface she gasped for breath, noticing that Chris was breathing heavily right beside her. Barely a second later and she heard the water break beside her as Crystal joined them, breathing heavily as well.

After a moment they all seemed to be breathing normally, and Chris started digging through one of his pockets. He pulled out a stick and snapped it around the middle and an orange fluorescent light started glowing. Seemingly effortlessly, he tossed the stick into the pitch black hallway. It hit a thick-looking door and fell to the floor.

"Let's go," he instructed, stepping forward, Alice and Crystal wordlessly followed.

Alice was maybe two steps from the flooded stairwell where they'd just come up from when she heard the sound of something else breaking the surface. She turned around and saw one of the freakishly mutated zombies grab Crystal and pull her back under the surface. Hordes more started coming up, a never ending stream. She grabbed her gun and she heard shooting behind her, the closest monsters falling with bullets between their eyes.

She stumbled back a few steps, trying to keep a fair amount of distance between her and the creatures. She fired off rounds from her gun and ran sideways, toward the door. Chris was already there, beckoning her to hurry. She fired one last round into a severely decayed looking teenage boy before jumping into the safety of the armoury and away from the creatures outside. Chris slammed the door shut, enclosing them in darkness and she heard him breathe out an almost undetectable sigh if relief.

"You know," he said, weariness in his tone, "I don't think Matt would appreciate you getting yourself killed, or me letting you for that matter."

Alice let out a hollow laugh, but otherwise didn't respond. She heard another crack as he lit up another fluorescent tube and dropped the orange light to the ground, giving them enough light to see what they were working with. Alice couldn't help but grin. "Nice."


	22. Chapter 21

CLAIRE:

God they were screwed. That was the only thought going through her mind as she ran toward the safety of the building with Matt and Luther hot on her trail. They made it in with little time to spare and slammed the thick door shut. "There," Matt said patting the thick steel, "that should keep them at bay for a while."

They all knew it was wishful thinking, though. With that creature with the nails through it's body wielding that monstrous ax, who knew how long that door, hell, even the wall was going to last.

As if reading her mind, Luther said, "We need to get to the roof."

"What about Alice and Chris?" They were the only ones she hadn't seen get to safety for sure.

The look on Matt's face was a pained one as he answered, "They can take care of themselves we need to go."

She nodded and they quickly walked up the stairs, the banging of the ax on the door just spurred their efforts on.

They were almost at the top when they heard a loud rumbling noise. She felt her heart beat speed up and her face pale. "What the hell?" Matt said under his breath.

Their quick walk turned into a full on run as they sprinted up the stairs, wondering what was going on. "Please don't let that be the plane," she heard Luther praying under his breath. She was right behind him on that one.

When they got to the roof, she saw with mild annoyance that there was a lock on the screen door, preventing her from getting out. "Hey!" she yelled, seeing Bennett in the driver's seat and Kim Young beside him on the roof, cowering in fear as Bennett pulled out a gun. He fired some rounds in their general direction. Matt placed himself in front of her and Luther, blocking them from the path of the bullets.

As soon as he stopped shooting at them, Matt turned around and reached out for the lock, he gave it one hard tug and it snapped effortlessly. As soon as the door opened, the three of them rushed out, and toward the moving plane. She saw Alice and Chris right behind her.

They were too late, Bennett ran right off the roof and kept falling. Luther ran over to the side and yelled after him, "That's right bitch! Fuck you!"

"Damn it!" she muttered under her breath.

Bang! Someone shot a gun from beside her. She turned around and awe Chris standing there, a disturbed look in his eyes and a zombie laying on the ground maybe five feet away from them. She turned completely around and saw more of them making their way through the door, and they were all running at them. It took her all of five seconds to go into action.

She saw that the bag of guns that Chris had was laying on the cement beside her. Immediately she bent over and gripped the first gun she could get her hands on. "Alice!" She called before throwing the weapon in her direction. Immediately her friend began firing rounds at the undead.

More and more doors were cut off as the zombies poured through them. There didn't seem to be a way out. She grabbed a handgun and started aiming at the heads of the undead, trying to keep up a stoic expression like the others. She didn't want to be the only one afraid.

ALICE:

"There's too many of them," she announced. The amount was getting larger and larger. She looked over and saw the elevator. That was probably their only hope. "The elevator!" Alice instructed.

"We don't have power!" Kim Young protested.

Luther seemed to realize what Alice had in mind because he said, "We aren't going to need power."

They all ran and got in. Alice waited as they piled in. The grenade set to go off in ten seconds. Matt was the last person on, he looked back at her, confused. "What are you waiting for, lets go!"

"I'll meet you down there." She replied.

"No!" he protested, jumping forward, but it was too late. The grenade exploded and the elevator started falling. She had no time to watch. Immediately she started firing at the crowd of the undead as it got steadily closer. She turned around and ran toward the white metal pole with the piece of cable firmly attached to it and started running again, gripping the cord firmly in her hand. She made it to the side and, without so much as hesitating, she jumped off.

She knew that the zombies were chasing her and had followed her off the building. As the cable started to straighten up, she began swinging toward the front of the jail in the streets. She could smell the foul oder of decay and it reminded her of her hours of hell in the Hive, which of course reminded her of Matt, even swinging from this high up, she was imagining how pissed off he was at her.

She hit the ground rolling, feeling every broken piece of glass or jagged rock that hit her skin. She ignored the sharp pain and pulled out her guns, all thoughts of Matt and everything else vanished from her mind as she went to work. She began methodically shooting every walking corpse that came within two feet of her. In the back of her mind she knew that it was only a matter of time before she was out.

Suddenly she heard a shout, "Over here!" directly in her line of sight stood Luther and Matt. Both of them were firing off rounds into the crowd, keeping them away from the building and from Alice.

At the same time both of her handguns clicked on empty. Without even losing a step, she threw both useless weapons behind her, hopefully knocking a couple of the creatures in the temple. She reached for the two shotguns bolstered on her back and pulled them out. She straightened her arms out and aimed for the two closest creatures. An explosion sounded through the air as the quarters were released. Luther and Matt both automatically crouched and covered themselves. Alice ran forward, the small army of undead following her. Luther and Matt both straightened up and grabbed the top of the sliding door, when Alice was within a reasonable distance, they started closing the door. She dropped into a slid under the large metal door, right before it closed shut, blocking them off from the hungry monsters.

Silence rang through the room as Alice got to her feet. She looked at Matt's face, trying to figure out how angry he was. He betrayed no emotion as he stared back at her. "I'm glad you're safe," he murmured.

Alice swallowed hard, feeling guilty. How would she have taken it if it had been the other way around. She inwardly cringed at the very thought. A loud bang from the outside snapped her out of her thoughts. "Come on," she instructed.

CLAIRE:

Everyone that was left stood around the zombie dug hole in the bathroom. They were three people short. Bennett, like the asshole he was, bailed on them, Angel was shot in the head by Bennett before he escaped when he realized that the tank wouldn't work because the motor was in disrepair, and Crystal who'd died on the way to get weapons with Chris and Alice.

"We have to go down there?" Kim Young demanded, peering into it timidly as if he was afraid of it swallowing him.

"Its our only way out," Alice reasoned.

"But what if there are more monsters at the end?" He questioned.

"There are zombies in the jail right now," Matt informed him impatiently. "If we don't go, we definitely die."

Kim Young looked ready to protest again but Chris cuts him off, "I'll take point."

"I've got your back," Luther volunteered.

"Right behind you," Matt said.

Chris scooted into the hole and quickly disappeared. That was her brother going down there first. She may not have completely remembered him but she believed him and now she was worried. Luther was next, he flashed them all a grin and said, "See you on the other side." He was out of sight.

Matt was next. He grabbed Alice's hand and said, "You won't do anything stupid if I go now, will you?"

Claire found herself smiling at the two of them despite their dire situation.

"Go on Matt," Alice said, she rolled her eyes but Claire could see the corners her lips curve up slightly. "I promise I won't do anything stupid."

He gave a sharp nod and turned around, flashing her an encouraging smile before disappearing into the dark hole. "Alright," Alice said to Kim Young, "you next."

He shook his head, "I can't."

Alice let out an exasperated sigh and Claire cut her off before she could say something that would discourage the cowardly man even more. "Yes you can."

Before he could respond to her words or encouragement, Claire saw a glint of metal and then an ax slicing right through him. Half of his body went one way while the other half went the opposite. She looked up and saw that the monstrous ax man was standing over its latest victim.

The surprise that was running through Claire's body didn't seem to so much as faze Alice. She ran toward him, sprung from the ground and placed a spin kick right where it's left cheek would have been. She dropped to the ground in a crouch and looked at him. The blow she had just administered would have broke any normal monster's neck, this one wasn't even moved.

It lifted its ax much faster than anything that size had the right to move and knocked Alice into the wall to her left so hard that the tile was knocked off and hit the ground the same time she did. The pipes were knocked out of the walls and water was spewing everywhere, making it slippery. The ax man walked toward Alice, obviously going to finish her off when Claire pulled out her gun.

Hoping that she was a good aim she fired at his back. Seconds later she was rewarded with him stopping and going rigid beneath his black cloth. It turned around and Claire felt a sense of panic as she looked over the nails sticking out of its body, she had a feeling that her small handgun was completely useless against it. Looking at the ground, she saw that one of Alice's shotguns had been knocked off of her when she was slammed into the wall.

The ax man started getting closer to her. He raised his ax and began swinging its disturbingly sharp blade in her direction. She ducked and rolled out of the way and toward what looked to be her only hope. She grabbed the gun and stood. The ax had wedged itself into the wall maybe two feet behind were she was standing. Her attacker was stalking toward it, but she wasn't going to let him get that far. She aimed the gun and fired. The quarters discharged and flew right into the monster's back. He unceremoniously fell to the ground with an audible thud in the now silent bathroom.

She was about to congratulate herself on a job well done and go and check on Alice when she saw something that made her want to scream in outrage. She saw him move. The ax man slowly got to his feet and Claire just stood there. What was the point of moving? She apparently couldn't kill the creature and she knew that she die if she tried to make it to the hole with Alice. She'd die before she left Alice behind. The man held his ax at an awkward angle and she didn't realize that he was about to throw it at her until it was too late. She was frozen in surprise. Then Alice was there, she forced her to duck, they cut it real close, much to close for comfort, she was pretty sure she got a bee haircut. Then once again, without breaking a step in her stride, she raised her other shotgun and fired it right at the monster's head.

This time the gun was effective. The creature fell to the ground without a head. The dark blood seeped from its wound and mingled with the clean water on the bathroom floor, giving the once sanctuary a completely tainted feel.

"Alright, Claire," Alice said, "let's get going."

"You know," Claire said, "Matt's gonna be pissed when he hears about this.

"Probably," Alice agreed.

"When I hear about..." Matt's head came up through the hole and landed on the now dead ax man. He pulled himself out of the hole and sighed. "You're a magnet for trouble, you know that?"

Claire found herself smiling again as Alice replied. "Its a gift."

"Go ahead, Claire." Matt instructed. "Your brother has already made it to the end and Luther's waiting halfway Alice'll be right behind you."

"Alright," Claire nodded as she sank into the hole and started inching her way through.

She'd only been in there for maybe thirty seconds before she heard the sound of Alice joining her. She struggled through the hole, earning several scrapes, cuts and bruises along the way.

Claire might have been down there five minutes when she saw sign of movement right in front of her, she almost screamed when someone clamped a hand over her mouth. She looked over and saw Luther looking at her, his face deathly serious as he placed a finger over his lips, in a sign for her to remain silent.

In a barely audible whisper, he said, "They're close."

Figuring that he meant the zombies, she nodded. He nudged his head toward the direction that she'd been headed, an obvious sign for her to get moving. She passed him a grim half-smile and continued on her way. A few hellish minutes later, she saw the light of outside right below her. Chris was there, looking up and smiling as soon as he saw her face.

She scooted up to the edge and let herself drop, Chris caught her before she could hit the ground. Smiling proudly at her he announced, "I knew you'd make it."


	23. Chapter 22

ALICE:

She motioned for Matt to go in next but he shook his head, "I was serious. No worries, I'll be right behind you."

She looked at him for a moment before nodding, "Alright." She jumped into the deep hole and started inching through. Coming across Luther a few seconds later. He waved her along a finger over his lips. Not questioning the gesture, she inches along, hearing scraping behind her, letting her know that Matt was there.

Soon she made it to the end of the tunnel and to the hole. Chris and Claire were. Instantly she scooted over to the hole feet first and let herself fall. Before she could hit the ground, Chris caught her.

"I see you made it too," he observed with a smile.

Alice nodded mutely and looked up at the hole. She saw Luther's face and Matt's hovering over the hole. Alice locked eyes with Matt and he gave her an encouraging smile before shifting over. But before he could so much as jump down Luther said, "What the Hell?"

Both of them looked to the left and Luther fired his weapon. Matt jumped over, apparently trying to help his friend. The bullet must have messed with the foundation because the next second the top of the tunnel crashed down covering their exit. "No!" Alice said, running toward the mess of rocks.

Claire held her back, "Alice, there's nothing you can do for them." There was a tear running down the younger woman's cheek, apparently she remembered Matt enough to be emotional about his demise.

Alice tugged herself out of Claire's grip, feeling her own eyes water as well. What was she going to do now? Matt's presence had been vital to her, now he was gone. After all that fighting, he was just gone. And Luther, he didn't deserve any of this, he was probably one of the few people in that diseased world that gave a damn about a total stranger's well being. 'Why?' her mind screamed, 'Damn it! Why?'

Shaking in uncontrolled fury, she said, "Let's go."

She power walked away from the scene, forcing her eyes to stop tearing up. There was time for weakness later.

Soon enough they made it to the shore and onto a boat, Chris was driving it toward the safe haven. She gave Claire a sad smile and she sighed, why did this happen to her?

As they got closer to the ship, the fog seemed to thicken infinitely. She didn't see the vessel clearly until they were at the entrance. They docked the boat and walked onto the port and up stairs to the top of the huge ship. The floor was red and huge. Her plane was wrecked toward the end of the ship. They walked slowly over and Alice commented, "Looks like he made it."

Alice looked at the smoke coming from it in disgust before saying, "Come on." She led them off toward the other side.

As they walked inside the split up, searching for any sign of life. But there was none. When they met up again, Alice was checking the controls. "Fuel, equipment, power, everything's running normally."

Chris was examining a computer monitor. "Look at this," he said. "This is the ship's log. The crew launched the lifeboats eight days ago."

"That's the same time that the transmissions stopped," Alice observed.

"But," Chris continued, "it says that there is still 2,000 survivors on board."

All three of them looked at each other before Claire spoke up. "Let's get them."

(HOLD 8-7C)

They were walking carefully through the bottom of the boat. "We need to search every inch of this ship," Claire said as they came up to a large door. Alice raised her flashlight to show the insignia on it.

"Umbrella," Alice whispered.

"Of course," Claire breathed. "I remember, they came to pick us up."

"It was all a lie," Alice concluded, anger burning within her like a wildfire.

"Worse than that," Claire said, grabbing her gun, an action that she and Chris automatically mimicked. "It's a trap!"

The huge door automatically unlocked and they slowly walked into a pitch black room. The door closed behind them, and bright lights came on row by row, revealing a huge room that was completely empty save for a stand holding some kind of touch pad.

"Where is everybody?" Chris asked slowly. "I don't understand."

"I think I do," Alice said, kneeling down and feeling the floor with her fingertips. "they're underneath our feet."

Claire walked over to the touch pad and grabbed it. When the light came on she said, "They're holding the survivors for experiments, look its K-Mart, she's here!"

"Bring them up," Alice instructed, walking toward her, "all of them."

And so she did, the whole floor seemed to come to life, every third brick had a hexagonal tube sliding up. Each tube housing one person. They all seemed to be asleep.

Claire immediately started running. Alice and Chris took off after her. She came to a halt in front of a tube housing a very familiar blonde. "Its K-Mart. "

"Let her out," Alice responded.

Claire didn't need to be told twice. She hit a button and the door came open, steam coming from within. K-Mart fell forward and Alice caught her, falling to the floor with the teen. "K-Mart," Claire said desperately. But the girl was already squirming, fighting them with all her might.

"Its okay," Alice pleaded, "its okay. K-Mart! Its alright."

Finally she calmed down slightly, and Claire said, "I'll get this thing off her, you go and get the others out." She handed Alice the touch pad.

Claire turned back to K-Mart as Alice got up. "Wer'e your friends, right now we need to get this thing off you."

Alice walked down the aisles, letting people out as she walked. That was until she caught sight of a bloody tube. Slowly she walked toward it, curiosity and suspicion filled her mind. There was more than just one. She placed her hand against one and could almost see what had hapless to the poor soul.

She was certain that someone else was there when she saw the trail of blood leading to another large door. Setting down the touch pad, she walked toward the door, which slid open for her. She walked into a room full of air crafts, apparently ready for takeoff.

The door slid shut behind her as she walked slowly forward onto the bridge, looking all around as she walked across the stark white room, not missing the large red box labeled purge. Smiling nastily, she had an idea.

After she was finished with her little plan, she continued her walk across the room and to the other side where another door opened for her.

It was filled with corpses that were starting to decay on examination tables. Screens were hanging all over the place, and the lifted up as Alice walked through. And sitting on a large white chair as if it was his throne was no other than Albert Wesker himself. Even when he should have been dead, she wasn't shocked.

"Why am I not surprised?" Alice asked rhetorically.

"You weren't too hard to find," he informed her. "The satellite system is still operational, besides I always knew you'd be drawn to your friends... loyalty, highly overrated."

Before Alice could find something to add to their conversation, two menacing growls came from a large open hallway behind Wesker. Two undead dobermans came out, Alice immediately pulled out her two shotguns and pointed them at the monsters.

Wesker said, "Sit!" The dogs obeyed, sitting down beside him. "Wouldn't want you hurting my pets," he informed her.

She smiled sarcastically at him, harming him instead was fine with her. She shifted her guns so that they were pointing at him. Before she could fire, she heard someone say, "I don't think so."

Alice felt the point of a gun press against her head. Calmly she snatched the gun points in the air and glared at Wesker. "Drop it," the man said nastily.

Alice complied.

"Good girl. Now kick them over to me," the man ordered.

Alice obeyed once again. Turning around, she comment, "You look like shit, Bennett."

"I can't wait to play with your pretty little face," he snapped right back.

Alice ignored him and looked at Wesker. "I see you're still alive."

"Yes," he said, "the T-virus revived me it makes me stronger," he paused and tensed up for a moment, shuddering slightly. "But it is rather unpredictable. Ingesting human flesh keeps it at bay, but I still have to fight for control."

"Eating members of the boat," Alice commented, "no wonder the crew abandoned ship."

"Looks as though your friend... Addison, abandoned you," Wesker snapped back. Going back into his cool composure he said, "It doesn't matter however, "I have a new subordinate, and a new theory."

Alice raised an eyebrow, the comment about Matt stung, but she'd worry about that later. "Really, and this new theory is?"

"You were the only one to successfully bond with the virus," Wesker explained, "your DNA is different from everyone else's. If I ingest you, I control the T-virus."

Alice slowly started walking toward a table full of sharp knives of all different shapes and sizes. She almost felt Bennett's gun following her. "That's a good plan," she commented, "there's just one problem."

"Oh," Wesker said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "and what would that be?"

Alice looked at him with a calm expression, "I'm not on the menu." Before either of them could do anything, Alice kicked the tray of knives toward Wesker. She turned around knocking the gun out of Bennett's hand and kicking him, making him fly backward and onto one of the decaying bodies.

The two dogs stepped forward, and the only gun that would have been in convenient reach happened to be at the feet of an undead Doberman.

So Alice froze, trying to keep both dogs in her line of sight as Wesker looked at her coldly. He might have said something, but he paused, and a smirk came to his face. "Well is this one big family reunion. Chris and Claire Redfield. You've been quite troublesome to me." Sure enough, both Redfields were behind Wesker, their guns out, pointing straight at him.

"Told you I was bringing friends," Alice informed him.

His eyes glowed a bloody red ans he said, "You should have brought more."

Chris:

Wesker turned around, took his sunglasses off and threw them straight at him and his sister. Automatically his hand reached out and grabbed the shades. As soon as he had his hand around them, Wesker was there. Moving at super speed, he grabbed both him and his sister by the arm and flung them to the ground, knocking the air out of his lungs. Ignoring his breathlessness, Chris jumped to his feet and ran at Wesker. His shoulder collided with Wesker's stomach and he managed to push him back a few feet before they stopped. The next thing he felt was a knee in his gut, forcing his air from him yet again. Wesker kneed him another time for good measure, this one sent him flying back. He groaned before jumping back to his feet. He saw Claire getting up as well. Immediately he pulled his gun out and started shooting at his blonde foe. Wesker just dodged out of the way of the bullets' path until he ran into Claire, he grabbed her around the neck and smiled smugly at Chris, who felt outrage boil deep in his core. He still had his gun pointed at Wesker but what could he do? Shoot his own sister?

It looked as though he wouldn't have to shoot anyone. Claire had something up her sleeve... literally. A large and disturbingly sharp knife with a hook on the edge was in her grip and was soon in one of his leg. Wesker's smug grin was replaced with a look of pain, he threw Claire to the ground and pulled the knife out. He stared at the dark blood for a moment before throwing it to the ground. Chris ran forward again, Claire got up,and tried to attack him from the side. Hes sidestepped both of their attacks and knocked them into a small room filled with tubes. Then he raced in with his inhuman speed, slamming them into a tube right next to each other. The door shut and they started to sink into the ground before either of them could do anything about it.

"Claire!" Chris yelled, trying to break the glass with his elbow. "Claire!" he yelled again as he saw her trying to break her own imprison. He took his gun, covering his face with his free hand and shot at the glass, trying to break free. It was no use though, the glass remained in tact as it swallowed them up into the darkness.

ALICE:

While Wesker was fighting the Redfields, she had problems of her own. The two undead dobermans were growling at her as they stalked closer to her. She knew she didn't have much time, so as soon as the dog that was standing over her shotgun jumped at her, she dove down, grabbed it and turned on her back, firing her quarters into the monster. That was one dog down on the ground, dead. Of course the quarters kept going up and up until they hit the glass lighting on the ceiling. The glass exploded and started raining down. Alice tried to make herself small as possible to avoid large and sharp chunks. But the other dog was running at her, she looked up and saw a huge and jagged chunk of glass flying down. She waited, making sure to keep am eye on her distance from the dog. As soon as the glass was low enough, she kicked it with the flat if her foot, sending the heavy projectile toward the dog. When it hit the beast, it buried deep into him, it fell to the ground on it's back, completely dead.

Before she could do anything else, she heard footsteps behind her. Bennett was there with a knife, automatically, she threw her hand up to protect herself as he brought thr knife forward. It impaled her skin, going all the way through. She yelped in pain as Bennett released the knife and backed away. She turned around, Bennett wasn't a threat at the moment, because she felt someone else's footsteps. Wesker was there, he opened his mouth, a smile on his face as he did so. The strange tentacles that she'd seen in the prison were growing from his mouth. Alice looked down at her arm, which was dripping blood. Gritting her teeth, she pulled the knife out of her arm, inwardly screaming. Wesker walked toward her, Alice hauled back and drove the knife through his skull. Wesker froze and fell to the floor.

She didn't even have to turn around to know that Bennett was reaching for her other gun. "Don't even think about it," she said coldly.

She turned around walked over, and grabbed the gun. She saw that Wesker was starting to get up, he pulled the knife out of his head and pushed himself to his feet. He barely got two inches toward her, with the tentacles flailing from his mouth, before Alice was there. She shoved the gun point in the middle of the ttentacles, paused for a moment before pulling the trigger. She literally blew his brains out. He fell backward, his head hit the bottom step to the next room where Chris and Claire were being housed.

Alice ran up the stairs and grabbed the tablet. She flicked through the names until she found Chris and Claire. Immediately she hit their names, releasing them from their confinement. Chris made it out first. Muttering, "Claire," under his breath, he stumbled over to his sister's tube, as soon as she made it out, he went into complete mother mode, making sure that she was okay.

Wesker was starting to stir again, breath coming out hoarsely from his mouth. A huge bloody hole was gaping from his head, showing off the hollow inside. But before he could so much as rise into a sitting position, Chris was there. He put his foot on his chest, and said, "I don't think so," softly before firing at him. Claire walked up beside him and begain doing the same as well. Alice stayed back, glaring at Bennett as they did what was necessary. Once both siblings were almost out of ammo, they left.

As the door shut, they made sure Bennett was in the room. And as the door shut, they heard Bennett's protests. "You can't do this! I'm a producer!" The door shut and he came on the small communication box on the outside, shouting yet again. "If you leave me in here, you're going to have to deal with some serious consequences! You mother fuckers!" Chris, apparently getting tired of hearing it, took his gun and shot the television, leaving them in blessed silence.

They were almost to the other doors when they heard the sound of whirring blades. They turned around and saw that one of the machines were up and running. Wesker was smiling at them out of the windshield. Before they could do much more than shoot at the ship, he was already shooting away.

"Come on!" Alice said hurriedly to the others, running into the other room and toward the outside. The Redfields followed quickly.

(Inside Wesker's Aircraft)

He was smiling, those stupid, stupid people thought that they could really beat him. He laughed at the thought as he pulled out a remote that said purge. He typed in the password and smiled as he got away. Project Alice along with everyone else aboard would no longer be a problem.

He heard a beeping noise and the ship was not supposed to beep. With a bad feeling, he got up and went to the parachute holder and started pulling out bookbags. After a moment, he was sure that you could see red eyes out of his sunglasses. He was pissed. There was the purge facility bomb.

5...4...3...

(On Arcadia)

They just managed to get to the top to see the firework display. "I thought," Alice said breathlessly, "you wouldn't want to miss that."

Claire and Chris laughed, and they enjoyed the feeling of freedom for a moment.

After a few minutes they walked into the insides again. Alice walked up to the radio. The Redfields, Carlos, and Kmart were with her. "What do we do now?" Carlos asked.

"We keep the promise," Alice replied, grabbing the microphone to the radio. "This is Arcadia," she said into it, "there is no infection, we offer food, water, shelter, and safety. If you are out there, we will help you. There's still hope." She smiled slightly at the end, Matt would be proud of her optimism.

MATT:

He and Luther were stuck in the tunnel. Matt had managed to jump over the tunnel and broke the creature's neck before it could bite Luther. Sadly the rock slide had cut them off from the others. He heard Alice yell out for them, but he knew that of he told her he was there, she would want to stay and help. So he motioned for Luther to be quiet, and waited for them to walk off.

"Come on," he muttered after a moment, "we've gotta go."

Luther nodded in agreement as the shuffled through the tunnel. No zombies seemed to be coming after them in the confined space, thank god. They were careful not to make any noise as they continued down the jagged tunnel. It felt as if it was going on forever, then it widened up. They both stumbled to their feet and walked through what seemed to be a rusted drainage pipe. Matt heard the echo of footsteps behind him. He and Luther both turned around. Two zombies were running uncoordinatedly toward them tentacled hanging out of their mouths disgustingly. Matt pulled out his guns along with Luther. Both of them shot one shot, taking out both zombies.

"Star power, bitches," Luther said triumphantly.

Matt chuckled and said, "We should probably get outta here."

Luther nodded in agreement. They were about to figure out how when they heard a whirring of blades. At first he thought that it was going to be help, he figured that Alice had made it to Arcadia and was immediately in demand for a search team. The girl was persuasive when she wanted to be. But as soon as they came into view, Matt realized that it was a fleet of aircrafts, going toward Arcadia. With his enhanced eyesight, he saw the all too familiar hexagonal logo.

"Oh, damn," he muttered.

**I hope you liked the chapter! Retrobution is going to be a bit different because some parts of it pissed me off. I've gotta start writing it. Review? I need inspiration!**


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